In Kolkata, Christmas is a festival for the outdoors“This festival stands for love,” said Mamata Banerjee earlier this week. Speaking at the Christmas Carnival on Kolkata’s iconic Park Street -- now Mother Teresa Sarani -- the West Bengal chief minister added: “This festival stands for unity, it stands for peace, it stands for solidarity. Instead, this is one state -- and regional culture -- in India, where celebrating Christmas is an undeniably cross-cultural and distinctively secular phenomenon. Does our master belong only to India?”About the very Bengali Christmas, acclaimed author Amit Chaudhuri writes: “In the western world, [it] is a time to be spent with family. It is the best Christmas -- better even than the London Christmas.”Vivek Menezes is a writer based in Goa, India.

Source: Dhaka Tribune December 24, 2020 20:26 UTC