Lessons I learnt from my first Christmas Eve

My first Christmas in Britain came as something of a surprise. I was at Cambridge University and had spent two and a half months of the first term settling into college, England, new acquaintance and writing letters to India.

I was living in the college dorm at the time and had not been told that during the Christmas holidays I would be required to move out.

My Tata scholarship didn’t stretch to the extravagance of going to London. I found the cheapest room I could find, at the top of a house in a dark street.

Soon the other undergraduates melted away. Even some of the Indians in other colleges — Rajiv Gandhi being one — had places to go and invitations.

Poona seemed very far away. I moved into my gloomy attic room at the top of the empty house with the landlady in the basement flat. I arranged my worldly goods and budgeted my allowance for the next few weeks. There was a coin gas meter in the room which supplied the fireplace and the cooking ring. I soon got the measure of it and its thirst for silver coins.

Blankets kept me warm through the nights but during the day, having reached the coin limit, I visited the few Indian and Pakistani friends, who were still in Cambridge, in their centrally-heated hostels, but even these soon went their ways and I hit upon the stratagem of going to the University libraries, sitting close to the radiators and catching up on the complete Tolstoy.

Then, as the 25th approached, the libraries shut. I had lentils and rice and had bought a bag of potatoes, cans of beans and a box of eggs and, of course, tea, coffee and a half pint of milk and these provided a rich and varied diet. But cooking exhausted the gas supply and there were no coins left over from my careful budget for heating. But it was Christmas and I knew the Church would provide.

I carried my Anna Karenina to one or other church or chapel in Cambridge, most of which were open, heated and deserted. I would stay for as much time as would be deemed the safe side of loitering and then move on to the next one.

I steadfastly visualised the old Parsi ladies who sat for hours in the fire temple with an open prayer book and, having covered my Tolstoy with brown paper, hoped that any intrusive enquiry would conclude that it was a Bible.

The churches stayed open for Christmas. Christmas Eve was particularly snowy and I attended the evening service and sang hymns with the substantial congregation of St Mary’s. A middle aged man with shiny black hair parted down the middle was standing next to me and he offered to share his hymn book with me. We sang the praises of the Lord.

Walking home after the service, I heard footsteps turn into my dark street. The man from the church was following me, caught up with me and began a conversation by asking if I was a student at the university. He said he’d come up to my room for coffee. I explained about the meter and he said he had plenty of coins. This was very tempting so I invited him up.

I was naive. He sipped the coffee I made and then took a box of talcum powder from his coat and asked if he could ‘powder’ me. I caught on. I kicked myself. I said I wasn’t up for that sort of thing and he began to argue. I asked him to leave and he began to shout which brought the landlady’s very robust son leaping up the stairs.

My new friend took one look at him and ran down. It all ended badly, but I suppose that’s another story. Merry Christmas.