The Nativity

Scene from The Nativity Play - Ranwar Village, December 1982

It was the second week of December in the year 1994. The voice of Jim Reeves singing Christmas Carols rang out of every village stereo set. The only other time I heard Jim Reeves was at funeral services when the undertaker, Mr. Baptista, played Take My Hand Precious Lord as he lowered the coffin into the ground. But, 1994 was a memorable Christmas because it was the year our village won the Crib Competition. It didn’t matter that there were only three entrants in ’94. History only remembers its winners and the last time we won the competition was in 1982. The Parish Priest himself announced our names at the Midnight Mass and the winners took home a cash prize of Rupees Five Hundred, which went towards our Christmas barbecue party and a bible each, which we donated to the less fortunate.

Every year, Aunty Maurene entered us into the crib competition because she felt it was the best way for us to prepare for the coming of 'Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ'.

“Children! The crib competition is in 2 days and you fellows haven’t even started on our crib. How many times must you be reminded?”

“But, Aunnie, we don’t have a table to build our crib on,” said Freddy, who was annoyed that someone cut short our game of Dabba Tip.

“But, then, you should have told me. I would have asked someone,” said Maurene.

“But, Aunnie, we asked a few people, but nobody was willing to give us their table,” said Freddy.

Nobody was ready to offer their table because of what happened the previous year. For our ’93 Crib Competition, Gilroy had said that Aunty Dolly was happy to offer her dining table without poor Dolly even being aware. One afternoon, while she was asleep in her bedroom, all of us kids walked into her house and walked out carrying her dining table to the main square. We covered the table in a big white cloth and went to work on it with mud, water and stones, making mountains, rivers, valleys and whatnot. Dolly only found out when it was too late and she had to eat all her meals on her bed that Christmas.

“Aunnie, actually we don’t need a table. We can make the crib on the ground in front of our cross,” said Nigel. Aunty Maurene seemed fine with the idea. The village cross was, after all, the epicentre of all our community activity, so we set about building our crib on the ground surface in front of it.

First, we began with a layer of mud to form the base for our Bethlehem landscape. Mitchelle and Shirley made a cardboard dollhouse for the stable. We sprinkled some bean sprouts on the wet mud and hoped that we’d have at least an inch of grass in time for the competition which was in two days. Nigel and Charlie went around the village borrowing characters for the crib; Sheep, Donkeys, Shepherds, the Three Kings, Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus. They managed to gather all except Baby Jesus.

Peter, who was just returning from another interview, stopped to supervise our work.

“Where’s baby Jesus?” asked Peter.

“We don’t have a baby Jesus,” said Charlie.

“You’re making a crib without baby Jesus? That’s like making an omelette without eggs.”

And with that, Peter zoomed off on his Kinetic Honda and returned with a life-sized plastic baby doll that he bought from a toy shop on Hill Road.

“Take this,” said Peter, handing us the baby doll. “You can use this as baby Jesus."

“But, Peter, the doll is too big,” said Mitchelle. The doll was almost double the size of our stable.

“It’s not big. Your stable is too small. Just make a bigger stable."

“But, the doll is bigger than Joseph and Mary and the donkeys,” said Shirley.

“Just be happy you have a baby Jesus. The shop is not going to take it back.”

Peter didn’t seem to care about the lack of proportions and suggested we get to work on building a roof extension for our stable. We eventually finished work on the roof and managed to fit in the giant baby doll. It wasn’t our best crib, but we were quite pleased with our efforts.

The next morning, Gilroy came over to my house and dragged me from the breakfast table,

“Aye, come fast! Someone’s destroyed the crib.”

I left my porridge half eaten and ran off with Gilroy to study the damage. Our crib was completely destroyed and beyond repair. The mud had been dug up and scattered. The cardboard stable was completely torn apart and the figures of Joseph and Mary were broken.

“Oh fick! Where’s Baby Jesus?”

We looked around the square, under the scooters, in the bushes, but there was no sign of the baby doll. It was time to break the news to Aunty Maurene.

“Bloody Non-Cats have done this,” she growled.

‘Non-Cats’ is short for Non-Catholics; a term that was invented in Bandra and loosely refers to all those people in the world who aren’t catholic. According to Maurene, there was no place in heaven for Non-Cats.

“Aunnie, I saw two people standing and looking at the crib last night and they looked like Non-Cats,” said Freddy.

I wasn’t sure what a ‘Non-Cat’ looked like and made a mental note to ask Freddy to teach me how to spot a Non-Cat.

“The devil burn them,” shouted Maurene.

Aunty Philomena or Philoo, as we all knew her, had heard the entire conversation from her balcony. Philoo, who was in her late seventies and looked like she had died and been exhumed, ran a small kindergarten school just down the road where she taught us how to speak the Queen’s English.

“Maurene, it’s a shame that Ranwar won’t be able to participate in this year’s crib competition,” she said. “But, all is not lost, children. Perhaps we can do a live enactment of the Nativity scene. I’m sure the judges would find it quite marvellous to see little children discover the joy of Christmas through action.”

Freddy spoke first.

“But, we’re just three of us and I’m not playing Mother Mary,” he said.

“Just shut up! You’ll get two slaps.” Maurene was back. “Philoo, that’s a wonderful idea. You think we’ll be able to get the whole thing ready by this evening?”

“We’ll do our best. What say children?” said Philoo.

“I’m not playing Mary,” said Freddy.

We were sent off to bring in more kids to fill in the various roles and in an hour’s time we had the entire cast of the nativity standing in Philoo’s living room. Maurene finished her cooking and came over to supervise.

“OK children, we must first pick our Joseph and Mary.”

There was a huge commotion as the kids fought over roles. Philoo was the final decision maker and she picked Mitchelle, who was tall and had beautiful long hair, to play Mary.

Gilroy was picked to play Joseph. Freddy was to play the Inn Keeper. Nigel, Dan and Charlie were to be the Three Kings. I was to play the shepherd and Shirley was to play the Angel Gabriel and the Bright Star. But, Shirley wasn’t happy about this. She felt she was better suited for the role of Mary and said so herself.

“I think I can play a better Mary than Mitchelle.”

“What do you mean you can play a better Mary? You have short hair,” said Mitchelle.

“Yeah, so? Who said Mary had long hair?”

“What? Have you seen a picture of Mary? Does she look like she has short hair?”

“Fine, but I have a blue and white dress, which Mary wore all the time and I’m not giving it to you to wear.”

We all knew that Mary without a blue and white dress was like Gandhi without the round glasses.

“Mitchelle, sweety, I’m very sorry, but it’s important that you have a blue and white dress. Do you have one, darling?” Asked Philoo. Tears began to stream down Mitchelle’s face. But, tears never bought you anything in Ranwar.

“Stop crying, Mitchelle,” Maurene barked. “Be happy you have nice hair. Now go be Angel Gabriel. Shirley, go take your place beside Joseph.”

Philoo took a piece of paper in her hand and stood in the centre of the room.

“Now children, I will play the narrator and tell the story. All you need to do is act out your parts.”

Aunty Philoo lived for this stuff. She held the paper up to her nose and began to read.

“The story begins with the Angel Gabriel who first appeared to Mary.”

Philo put down the paper and gestured to Angel Gabriel to ‘appear’ before Mary.

Unfortunately, our Angel Gabriel was still in tears and not very fond of our Mary.

“Mitchelle, stop it! Enough of this nonsense. Angel Gabriel is the only celestial being in this whole drama. You should be proud,” said Maurene.

Poor Gabriel got up from her corner and stood in front of Mary.

Mary, who seemed to draw inspiration from The Bold and Beautiful characters on T.V., was giving Gabriel the stink eye.

We did a whole run-through of the Nativity scene with Mary & Joseph approaching the Inn for shelter. The Inn-keeper offering his stable. The Three Kings following the Star and so on and so forth. As a shepherd, I didn’t have anything to do, so Maurene suggested I borrow somebody’s dog and pretend it was a lamb. The Three Kings; Nigel, Dan and Charlie, didn’t look like Kings according to Philoo, so she added a bit of makeup and gave them each one of her bathrobes to wear.

It was 4pm in the evening, just one hour to go before the judges arrived. They had already begun their rounds in the neighbouring communities. Peter, who had a Kinetic Honda, offered to go around from crib to crib to suss out the competition.

Our Nativity play had very little dialogue as Aunty Philoo was to narrate most of it.

Joseph had one line in the entire play and I think in biblical history as well because I’m not sure if Joseph said anything except, “Do you have rooms in your inn? My wife is with child…” to which the Inn-Keeper, Freddy, was supposed to reply with,

“We have no rooms, except a stable for the animals in the back.”

This seemed like a fairly simple line in one of the world’s most popular story plots, but not for Freddy; a boy of thirteen who today would be referred to as a child with ‘special needs’, but in those days we just called him an idiot.

“No,” shouted Freddy. “We have only animals in our rooms.”

“Bloody idiot!” Maurene screamed and made Freddy stand in a corner and recite his lines out loud.

We were just about ready when Peter came zooming in on his Kinetic Honda to let us know that the judges had reached the neighbouring crib.

“The other crib looks like a dog house,” said Peter.

“Showtime in 20 minutes, children,” said Aunty Philoo.

“Looks too good,” said Peter. “But, where’s Jesus?”

In all the confusion and excitement of putting the scene together, everyone seemed to have forgotten baby Jesus.

“Omelette without eggs, ah?” said Peter.

“Mary hasn’t given birth yet,” said Freddy.

“Shut up, idiot! Just be quiet and do your lines,”

“But, who’s going to play Baby Jesus?” I asked.

Maurene felt it would be too much trouble to get a real baby at such short notice.

“It’s okay, Aunty. I’ll sort it out,” said Peter and sped off on his scooter.

In the meanwhile, Aunty Maurene reminded me to borrow somebody’s dog.

The Three Kings were told not to run around for fear of ruining Philoo’s bathrobes. Angel Gabriel was asked to keep an eye out for the judges and Freddy stood in a corner repeating out loud,

“We have no rooms, except a stable for the animals in the back.”

“We have no rooms, except a stable for the animals in the back.”

I took a walk around the back of Aunty Jenny’s house and just as I’d expected, I found Brownie; a cute little stray pup that had taken up residence in Ranwar a few weeks ago. Brownie was busy chewing on something and to my complete horror, I found him gnawing on the baby doll that Peter had brought us the day before. I’d found our suspected Non-Cat.

In the distance, I could hear the Angel Gabriel screaming,

“The judges are coming. The judges are coming.”

I picked up the pup in one hand and the baby doll in the other and rushed back to the village square shouting,

“I found Jesus. I found Jesus.”

I gave the doll to Shirley and Gilroy. Aunty Philoo made a sign for us to get ready. I took my place with pup in hand. The judges entered the square led by a dancing Angel Gabriel. Aunty Philoo welcomed the judges in a posh accent that made our skit sound like a David Attenborough documentary.

“Welcome ladies and gentlemen to The Nativity Story. Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus brought to life by the children of Ranwar.”

Christmas Carols played from an old 2in1 cassette player and the Angel Gabriel appeared before Mary. We were off to a flying start.

Joseph and Mary began their slow walk down the lane.

“All is still and quiet in the little town of Bethlehem," read Aunty Philoo.

Suddenly, we were interrupted by a loud noise.

It was Peter on his Kinetic Honda, carrying a new baby doll in the front basket.

“Peter! Get out from here,” Maurene barked.

Peter looked confused, until he spotted the judges and a small crowd that had gathered. He parked his scooter and walked slowly across the play area, carrying the baby doll under his arm.

Aunty Philoo continued...

“As night gathers, Joseph and Mary, who have walked for six days, enter Bethlehem.

It is late and Mary is tired. But, look! In the distance, they see a humble Inn.”

Mary and Joseph approach the Inn-keeper.

Freddy had been standing in the same spot for the last thirty minutes repeating his line over and over again. Now that everyone was looking at Freddy, you could see him mouth the line over and over.

“Do you have rooms in your inn?” Asked Joseph. But, Joseph forgot to say, “my wife is with child”, which was the cue for Freddy. Freddy didn’t or couldn’t respond.

“Do you have rooms in your inn?” Joseph asked again. But, poor Freddy was waiting for his cue. There was a pregnant pause and then Freddy the Inn-Keeper shouted out,

“My wife is with child!”

“What?” said Joseph.

“What? said Mary.

“What the fuck?” said Peter.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘my wife is with child!’,” said Freddy.

“Oh. Shit. Sorry. My wife is with child,” said Joseph.

“We have no rooms, except a stable for the animals in the back,” said Freddy.

All the other actors were staring at Aunty Maurene who looked like she wanted to just die and be done with it. Aunty Philoo continued like nothing had happened,

“From far away, three camels plod up the road to Bethlehem.

The camels carry the Three Kings.”

Peter, who by this point had written off our skit as a circus show, caught a glimpse of Nigel, Dan and Charlie wearing Philoo’s lipstick and bathrobes and began singing, “I want to break free” just loud enough for the judges to hear him.

“The Kings journey ends in finding a new kind of King,” read Aunty Philo.

Mary took out the chewed up baby doll from under a white sheet and placed it on the straw mat in front of her. Brownie, who all this time had played a magnificent lamb in my arms, spotted the baby doll and bolted. He ran between the Kings, jumped on to the straw mat, picked up the doll in his mouth and ran off.

Philoo, who still had her nose buried in her script, continued reading;

“Rejoice! Rejoice! As we have found our new King.”

“That puppy has taken the baby, men aye!” shouted Peter.

“Aunnie. Aunnie,” Freddy was trying to signal to Aunty Philoo to stop.

The judges were hysterical.

Gilroy, who felt it was Joseph’s duty, above all, to protect the baby, ran after the dog. Shirley began to cry and just as Philoo looked up from her script, Peter ran over to Mary, unwrapped the baby doll from under his arm, placed it beside her and took the place of Joseph as if nothing had happened.

“The birth of Jesus brings hope to all…” proclaimed Philoo.

Aunty Maurene walked home and shut the door behind her.