That Christmas Eve, Santa did not come home

Christmas comes every year with joy, gifts, and sweets. But the Christmas Eve of 2016, for me, was nothing like the usual. The milk and cookies that my then 11-year-old cousin, Neil, left on the dining table were left untouched, the Christmas tree bore no new decoration, no cupcakes were baked, nor did we find surprise gifts in our socks.

December 24 had always been one of the most awaited days of the year for us. The grand birthday cake for Jesus' birthday, the roasted sausages and meatloaves, and finally, a house-favourite, narrating the story of the Three Wise Men–that is how I had spent Christmas Eve for as long as I could remember.

Things changed when we lost the "kid" of our gang who would be the most excited about Christmas–my Dadu (grandfather)–to cancer on December 6 that year.

Friendship was the most beautiful emotion to him perhaps, and without a doubt, he was my friend–my partner in crime, my confidante on bad days, and my advisor who never looked to judge my decisions as he believed in me more than I did myself.

I always admired Dadu's courage, especially the manner in which he embraced the doctor's words in 2014, when he first heard he had leukaemia.

He took it better than the rest of us, including myself. I was a sophomore at Notre Dame University Bangladesh back then. Not a day passed that I didn't get his call at 6 in the evening, asking if I was done with my classes and whether I had plans with my friends after classes.

While my parents only inquired about when I would be home, Dadu always asked me to set my burdens aside for a while and enjoy my youth, to feel the romanticism of young love, to build bonds of friendship, absorb new knowledge, and most importantly, adapt to the customs of the fast-paced world before having to override my innate innocence, simplicity, and sense of judgement. 

Friendship was the most beautiful emotion to him perhaps, and without a doubt, he was my friend–my partner in crime, my confidante on bad days, and my advisor who never looked to judge my decisions as he believed in me more than I did myself.

Christmas was our day, always, as he would be our Santa and we would be his little army of elves, with lots and lots to arrange for the big day.

I still remember how, after we all were done with the arrangements for the Christmas Eve party, Dadu would disappear for a while and only return after Santa had left. How I always fought with him over his absence during this period.

That year, as I turned nine, I realised that the red-suited merry man who knocked on our door, the man with a huge tummy, and long white hair and beard, was none other than my Dadu, William Biplob Samaddar.

Christmas was our day, always, as he would be our Santa and we would be his little army of elves, with lots and lots to arrange for the big day.

I was not used to a Christmas where we only got to see sorrow in the eyes of my Thaku (Grandma), sadness and disappointment in the faces of my brothers and sisters, and tears rolling down our parents' cheeks when saying grace at the dinner table–this was how we celebrated Christmas eve in 2016.

After dinner, when we all went to bed with the worst feeling I had ever felt, I knew that no one was going to wake us up for the church mass the morning after, as Dadu always did. In fact, most of us had snuck into his bedroom when the night grew darker as the excitement wouldn't let us sleep.

We knew he would be waiting for us with his big CD player and his collection of Christmas movies. We knew that he would not have gone to bed as a thin beam of light peeped at us through his unlocked bedroom door to welcome us into his mega-sized blanket.

This was probably my first Christmas night when I did not sneak out of my room to climb up five stories of my Dadu's house in blinding darkness, with the other kids in their pyjamas joining me as I passed by their houses.

The next morning, however, with the morning dew glowing in the sun's spotlight and as the breeze grew warmer, a soft whisper made its way into my left eardrum as I was loitering around Dadu's rose garden in the lawn. "Smile", said a familiar voice, but my puzzled mind was unable to recall the stance where I had heard it before.

As I went back to my room, took a shower, and decided to put on my new dress for church, I looked at the wall from where Dadu was looking at me with a big grin on his face. The joy in his eyes compelled me to ignore the garland of white lilies that was cradling his face with its soft petals.

Looking at his face, within a split second, SD Burman's song, "Tumi Ar Nei Shey Tumi'', started echoing in my ears. The voice I was hearing did not belong to the singing legend. It belonged to one of his biggest fans, my Dadu.

In that one moment, I knew where the whisper came from…

Years have passed since that Christmas and we have almost gone back to Dadu's ways of celebrating the big day. But since that day, I have not missed my early morning Christmas walk in his rose garden, only to hear the wind's whisper again, but never did.

Ashley Shoptorshi Samaddar is a Sub editor at The Daily Star's News Desk.