Boxing Day — In British India
I work in a sahib’s bungalow.
On Christmas Day, the house wakes before the sun. The cook has been up all night. The bearer presses the sahib’s coat. The table is laid with things that do not belong to this land — roast meat, puddings, bottles wrapped in straw. Outside, the garden is still, as if it knows it is not invited.
We work without pause.
We always do.
The sahib goes to church. Guests arrive in motorcars and tongas. Laughter carries through doors we do not enter unless called. Plates come back half-eaten. What remains is more than what my home will see in a month.
By night, when the last glass is cleared, my hands smell of food I have not tasted.
The next morning is different.
No bell rings early. The bungalow is quiet. The sahib’s wife calls us one by one. There is no speech. No sermon. Only practice.
She gives me a parcel.
Wrapped in old newspaper. Tied with string.
Inside is cake — heavy, dark, rich. A woollen shirt that no longer fits the sahib. Some money, folded small so it does not look like much, but it is. It always is.
They call it Christmas gift.
We call it understanding.
By noon, I am walking toward the railway line. The train is crowded with others like me — cooks, bearers, sweepers — each carrying something wrapped, each guarding it carefully. No one opens anything yet.
At the village, they are waiting.
My mother touches the cloth first.
My father counts the money silently.
The children wait for the cake.
When it is cut, the knife moves slowly. This is not everyday food. This is food from another world. We eat it carefully, as if eating too fast might make it disappear.
For one evening, the sahib’s Christmas enters our house.
I know this day did not begin here. I have heard that long ago, in England, servants received boxes the day after Christmas. A man named Samuel Pepys even wrote about it in his diary — about giving money, about the cost, about the duty of it.
I understand him.
This day is not kindness.
It is not charity.
It is order.
Those who serve must return home with something. Otherwise, the year would feel unfinished.
Tomorrow, I will go back to the bungalow. The shirt will no longer smell of the sahib’s soap. The cake will be gone. The money will be saved for a harder day.
But tonight, Boxing Day has crossed oceans and centuries to reach my home.
And for that one night, the distance between the big house and the small one feels almost walkable.
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