Local flavour mingles with church rituals.

MUMBAI: Not all the carols wafting out of India's churches on Christmas are European imports sung in English. Many were originally scripted in Indian languages such as Marathi by the likes of the early 20th century Sanskrit scholar and Marathi poet Reverend Narayan Vamanrao Tilak.

While Christmas mass in metropolitan India may well be synonymous with Western traditions, in Orissa's tribal heartland, the priest's hands are washed by his disciples before mass, a tribal custom that Fr Dominic Emmanuel, secretary of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese Commission on inter-religious dialogue, has personally witnessed in Orissa's tribal churches.

Christianity is often viewed as a religion transported to India from the West. But Fr Emmanuel points out that the religion, which originated in Central Asia, may well have reached India before it reached England, with two of Christ's apostles landing in India in the 1st century AD.

Christianity as it is practised today is inextricably linked with Indian tradition. "Holy communion, offered in churches in some of Pune's low income areas, is in the form of naan and roti, in place of the wafer-thin host usually offered as communion," says Avinash Pagare, a Maharashtrian Christian based in Pune.

Plum-pudding and rum cake aren't the only sweets on offer this festive season. Karanjis, chakli and besan laddoos are the sweets that Dnyaneshwar Soholkar offers his neighbours on Christmas. Soholkar, a Christian from a Brahmin family in Vidarbha, prefers to call himself a Khrist Bhakt rather than a Christian.

Churches in Kerala carry out aartis with bells, lamps and a cross. "In some churches in India, people do an aarti for the priest, after which the priest does an aarti of the people. Not all churches have people standing for mass. Priests often conduct mass squatting on the floor much like Hindu priests in temples," says Fr Emmanuel.

The haldi ceremony, garlands and an exchange of mangalsutras are very much a part of Indian Christian weddings.

While Christian schools in India were once filled with nuns wearing the habit, an Eastern European nun called Mother Teresa, acclaimed for her philanthropy in West Bengal, popularised the saari among nuns.

A picture of Mother Mary in a sari looking over baby Jesus in a hammock is seen on the cover of Suvarta, a Marathi Christian magazine, points out senior journalist Vidyadhar Date.

"Japanese Christmas cards show Mother Mary in a kimono. In Africa, greeting cards show Jesus and Mary as black," says Fr Emmanuel pointing to the manner in which Christianity has integrated itself into every culture that it has entered.

In a country with a religion as plural as Hinduism, many Indians have had no trouble including Jesus Christ into the pantheon of Gods without necessarily converting to Christianity.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com