Bada Din

 Gone are those days, when, on Dec 25th mornings, we use to wake up and see snow all around us. This used to be celebration day because just a day earlier, school kids use to get their result (specially in government schools).

Hi I am Inder Singh Thakur, from Himachal Pradesh, India. My home town is Solan, on Chandigarh Shimla Highway, just 45 Km before The Queen of Hills and Summer Capital during British. View of snow capped mountains all around is my childhood memory.

In a simple village, reasonably far from the main city, Snow was not the reason of joy, It was a reason for difficult life. There use to be power failure, oil lamps were the source of light. We had to store firewood where it wouldn’t get wet because then it won’t burn and even drinking water would be something difficult to get as whole water would turn into ice.

Still we celebrate it. The celebration was the whole day process. Whole family stay in kitchen (which is a reasonably large room to accommodate every one) with chullah. Firewood burning whole day, turning snow into water and keep the kitchen worm for everyone. Kids of the family had a special work to do, their work is to peek of the thick skin of pumpkin after cutting it into pieces, extract the seeds from pulp, and then cut it into smaller pieces. The next stage is to boil the small pieces, and kids are on second phase of the project i.e. prepare masala the task include peeling off garlic, and then crush it in Kundi sota (Mortar & Pestle) along with anardana (dried pomegranate seeds) , coriander seeds, (Methi) fenugreek, red chillies and ... I don’t remember what all was there.

At the mean time we also use to put the extracted pumpkin seeds on tawa (griddle) to roast it. So that once we finish making masala we can eat those seeds.

Well our work was almost over, so we kids will start playing or go to elders and ask them to tell us stores about one king and his seven queens or a monster whose life was in a parrot in a cage (which I don’t remember at all) or sometime even study if it is still not dark outside. We even use to get the boiled piece of pumpkin to eat.

The elders, then use to cook “Meetha Kaddu” (Sweet Pumpkin) and namkeen kaddu, and Kukdi ki roti (makki/corn chapati) which surely take its own time. And by the dinner time everything is ready. The whole family use to feast on meetha kaddu and then one or two kukdi ki roti with namkeen kaddu depending on their appetite.

This was the way we use to celebrate the Bada Din i.e. December 25th almost every year. I am sure that not everyone was aware about Christmas, and everyone will have their own childhood memories.

Well, I am not against celebrating this day as Christmas, but why we stopped celebrating the Bada Din.