Christmas is a festival of love and miracles. Old traditions say that Santa Claus comes once a year on this day to fulfil your wishes. This year, the world needs his miracles more than ever.
Dear Santa,
‘Tis finally the season.
Every year as a child I used to anxiously wait for Christmas to come, for it was the day you came to make my wishes come true; to finally gift me the toys I had wanted all summer. But then I grew up and was told you weren’t real. Somewhere along the way I, too, stopped believing in miracles.
However, this Christmas, I’m counting on your arrival once again. I write this letter to you, in hope that there really is an old man on reindeers who comes once a year to make our wishes come true. And while I’m too big to play with toys now, I still have a couple of wishes I need to be fulfilled. The world as we know has way too many troubles.
It’s every day that I wake up with the realization that this world- my world- is dying. Climate change is here and it’s one of the scariest things in this world right now. The only thing scarier is our nonchalance regarding it: The ones in power have never cared less. There’s one part of the world burning, and the other part drowning in hurricanes. The remaining is being destroyed by humans ourselves.
It is us who have been at the forefront of this destruction. In our privilege and comfort, we often forget our responsibilities- our responsibility to care. There are far too many old men in power and barely any young voices out there. There are far too many women still fighting for their basic right to live in dignity and barely any changes. There are far too many people with too much money and barely any with a conscience.
Santa, I’d say I hope you being Christian doesn’t affect your chances of coming to India: a country whose leaders are trying their best to change it to a Hindu Rashtra. But then I know, you’re not one to discriminate. India needs its miracles, and it needs them soon. This past year we have had avoidable border conflicts, a state arbitrarily ripped of its power and authoritarian bills passed in the parliament. That’s not counting how low we’ve fallen in all indices. That’s not counting how terribly its people- its women- were treated. We faced leaders attempting to divide the country on religion, on caste, on gender. Regardless, I’d like to believe we stood strong.
It’s not just India I suppose, which has had its struggles intensified. The world is swamped with Trumps and Modis: men with a solitary goal of exploiting the earth and its people. But I suppose the world is also swamped with Greta Thunbergs, doing their own little bit.
Yet, every day I read the news to find new horrors. It really is at times like these when I can’t help but feel helpless. When I can’t help but wonder whether the little steps that we take are enough. When I can’t help but hope for a genie, or perhaps an old man with reindeers.
Every day, I look back at the world I was living in as a little kid. I’m sure the world right now needs more miracles than it needed back then. And who’s better than you?
With love,
Satviki
P.S. if you perhaps have some extra space in your sack, I’d like a life-sized teddy bear too!
Featured Image Credits- Me.me
Satviki Sanjay