What is Christmas for you and me??

I walked towards the church, with glittering lights and decorations. People had finished mass,they stood laughing, complimenting each other’s dress and gossiped. I looked at them and walked away. As I sit to ponder, what Christmas actually means to me? Is it fellowship, attending mass, wearing new cloths, hogging delicious cuisine, get together…..?? I know not, none of it actually matter to me nor made me happy. In other news, a girl is gang raped in a moving bus in Delhi, is fighting for her life. Entire nation condemns the act, there are rallies, agitations, debates, and newsrooms are "buzzing". The girl lay semi conscious fighting for life, feeling horrendous, fearful of her own tears and agony. Her vagina bleeds non-stop, her breasts are sore. Her father cries like a baby, her mother prays for her death knowing the trauma her child has to go through’. After a week, people are busy in their own mundane routine life. The girl long forgotten, people do not even have traces of vague memory. Does anyone remember-” Aruna Shanbaug”? Up west, mentally ill person kills children in his rage against the world, his mother, his friends who did not exist, his hatred towards himself. Children that fateful day were happy as ever, just another day. Maybe a kid got his morning kiss and another did not, not knowing they would be killed mercilessly brutally….just like that. Maybe mother of that particular kid who did not get his morning kiss mourns the loss, wanting feverishly to kiss her son. Just one. One last time. Just one. In my favorite country which I have never visited Afghanistan, a family prays in a roofless house. A girl child who will never attend elementary school, her father reminisces the glorious past of his beloved country. Every sound creates a dread of bombs bombarded mercilessly long back for no mistake of his or his family. Memory of his wife lost in the war against….?? he knows not. Her absence creates a vacuum he could never fill. Her warmth, her touch, her smell, her kisses, her memory haunts him. In parallel world in our world, business tycoons, corporates, banks discuss profits, balance sheets, strategy, acquisition, margins, risk management. The boardroom filled with people who hate each other but smile a lot. Politicians plan for next elections, bad mouthing oppositions in the day and have dinner together in the night. Hospitals are new mortuaries, schools are new stress manufactures, colleges create hostile environment. In my world, maid runs the house, goes home to drunkard husband, neighbors don’t talk to each other, men are frustrated, women are fed up, old people curse, children imitate. Next day the same rush, same rat race, same faces who don’t smile. Walls are tall, windows closed, trees are dry, and flowers do not blossom. It does not rain. It pours. People don’t whisper. They shout. Everyone runs not knowing where they are headed towards. Would anything change? Will i? will you? Will they? We all question and nobody answers. Millions die of disease, guns, bombs….of heartbreaks. A lone woman cries out of excruciating pain. Another laments at her loss. A man lives in illusion. Someone dies, someone cries, someone moans, someone laughs, someone dreams, someone hopes, someone plots. Someone is you and I. Now what is Christmas for me. Maybe a hope of what should be…..a better world for you and me. Just a “hope”. Little hope.