Namaste and Merry Christmas to everyone from a person belonging to an ancient Dharma (religion).
While I was a college student in Bangladesh, I stayed in the Baptist Mission Hostel. I was only one non-Christian resident of that hostel housed with a Baptist Church.
My college was Notre Dame College in Dhaka, where we used to say “Father” to our senior instructor and “Brother” to junior instructor. There were no female teachers at that time. We used to call Christmas day Borodin (” the long day”) in the Indian sub-continent. I don’t know why it is called that, because Dec. 25 is not the longest day.
The day celebrating the birth of Jesus is a special day for all mankind. However, I knew at that time, Lord Jesus said, “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek, which means no violence, no killing. It’s all loving.”
I celebrated Christmas with my resident friends of the hostel. I became almost a family member to many Christian families in Bangladesh. I met many priests there.
One I didn’t meet in Bangladesh, but met early in 2016 in Columbia, Mississippi was Thomas Thurman, who lived 35 years in Bangladesh. Reverend Thurman is still active at 85. For our visit his wife, Gloria, made us a lovely lunch. My wife cooked duck curry for them. It was a wonderful time.
We have been celebrating Christmas the 15 years we’ve been in the States. When the kids were younger, we even had a Christmas tree with gifts under it.
While doing graduate studies in Saskatchewan, Canada, I always spent Christmas at my research supervisor’s house. We decorated a Christmas tree and then had a Christmas dinner. In fact, I have nothing but good memories of Christmas wherever I was during Christmas time. Christmas carols work as a soothing emollient to me.
But, I am proud to be born in an eternal Dharma, which is popularly known as Hinduism. This is the only ancient religion, which was not founded by any one person like Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed.
It has a philosophical book, Gita, known as song of the God, which is derived from Vedas, a foundation stone of Hindu beliefs. In Hinduism, there are ‘Rishis’ meaning Sages, who after deep meditation (what Buddha did, too) realized the truths and eternal knowledge. These Rishis have composed those beliefs into hymns. Above all, it is the way of life with no violence.
It is really awful to think of man-made violence that kills innocent people while they are shopping for Christmas gifts, as happened last week in Berlin and the week before in Istanbul with the Russian Ambassador.
Our current world has become a dangerous place for peace-loving people.
You have to wonder if we will ever have “Peace on Earth”?
We can always hope.
Merry Christmas, my friends.
Jiben Roy, a native of Bangladesh, teaches chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at Mississippi University for Women. His email address is [email protected].
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