Gearing up for Christmas in style
Posted by barunroy on December 25, 2007
Siliguri, Dec. 24: The last religious festival of the year ~ Christmas ~ is now just a few hours away. Like the rest of India, Siliguri is all geared up to celebrate the festival, which would continue until the first day of the approaching year. Cake-making and eating have become an indispensable part of Christmas celebration. The bakeries of the celebrated Bidhan Market have been doing brisk business for quite some days now. Delicious cakes of different sizes and prices are being sold. Initially, an apparent slump in the cake market aroused despair in the bakeries. Sales did not take off on the expected lines.
There was an apprehension that the gloomy political situation in the Darjeeling Hills would have an adverse impact on the cake market in Siliguri, for a part of the buyers comes every year from outside, from Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, some areas of Bihar and, of course from the hills. Another factor also accounted for the initial slump in the cake market. It was the factor of prices. As the ingredients have become costlier the prices of the cakes have also become somewhat more expensive. Nevertheless, as the Christmas has approached near the inhibition on the part of the buyers has vanished. The owners and the workers of the famous bakeries are happy with the picking up of the Christmas spirit being reflected in the increasing volume of their sales. Bhibhuti Bhusan Paul Chittaranjan Das, both owners of well-known bakeries, are satisfied with the briskness of their business.
The Christian community in Siliguri is getting ready to celebrate the festival with fervour and devotion. The Christmas-eve Mass, known as the Vigil Mass, would be held this evening to be followed by the main Christmas mass tomorrow morning. Two main Churches in the city, the Roman Catholic Church in Pradhan Nagar and the Protestant Church on the Church Road are illuminated for this occasion.
The priest at the Roman Catholic Church, known as Our Lady Queen Church Valerine D’souza said that the Church campus this evening and through out tomorrow would become a meeting place of men and women. We are proud of this peerless heritage of ours, which teaches man to shed all forms of sectarian narrowness and to embrace all faiths with equal respect and a real sense of belonging. The true universality of the Christmas is perhaps best reflected on the soil of India’, he added.
