The Anglo-Indian community feels the lights are dimming at Christmas in Railway colonies

For the microscopic community in India, celebrations have been watered down in the last few years

Tiruchirappalli resident Blondel Rodrigues fondly remembers the merriment and dancing on Christmas day during the annual balls held at the Indian Institute Hall at Golden Rock and the Anglo-Indian Railway Institute in Tiruchy (which recently celebrated its 125th anniversary) in the 1980s and 90s. “The wooden floor would reverberate with the coordinated thumping of people dancing. There was laughter everywhere; liquor flowed freely. There also used to be a fancy-dress competition, which was the highlight of the evening,” he says, recalling the days when both halls saw people dressed in their Christmas best.

Once a thriving cultural hub of the Anglo-Indian community that dominated the scene of Tiruchy, the wooden dance floor at Golden Rock has now been replaced with red oxide and the hall, in general, lies unused. The Christmas ball at Golden Rock was discontinued in the early 2000s. Now, the microscopic community only has the Christmas and New Year’s dances to look forward to at the institute in Tiruchy. But attendance has dwindled over the years. 

Five decades ago, around 20,000 Anglo-Indians called Ponmalai home, with another 15,000 living in Tiruchy. Today, there are only about 500 of them in Ponmalai and another 1,000 in Tiruchy. The dwindling population can be attributed to migration, says Rodrigues, which, in turn, has contributed to the gradual fading away of a culture. 

Memories of Christmas past

Margaret Deefholts is a renowned Anglo-Indian writer living in Surrey and has fond memories of life as a “child of the Indian Railways”. Born in Allahabad, Deefholts immigrated to Canada with her family in 1977. On her blog, ‘Railways of the Raj,’ she says up to Independence in 1947, the Railways offered the Anglo-Indian community preferential employment in the upper and lower subordinate cadres. So, during the first half of the 20th century, most guards, drivers, firemen, loco-foremen and line maintenance staff were Anglo-Indians who took enormous pride in their gleaming iron horses. They ran their trains with split-second punctuality, and even during the turmoil of the Quit India Movement, were resolute in their determination to keep the railways functioning in the teeth of demonstrations, processions and blockades. 

However, even as most Anglo-Indians decided to leave the country in the years following Independence, the Railway Institute (a staple of most Railway colonies in India) was the focal point of social activity. Every Railway Institute had an entertainment committee that organised and ran whist drives, housie (bingo) nights, dances, amateur theatricals, costume parties, tin-and-bottle badminton tournaments and sports day events. However, Burra-din, as Christmas is referred to in Hindi, included staple events that made up the season’s festive calendar, including the children’s Christmas tree function, a Christmas fete—a jumble sale of home-made pickles, jams, cakes, hand-knitted woollies, embroidered table linen, a raffle for a Christmas hamper and a Christmas “tableau”—a theatrical production of the Nativity scene (a retelling of the story of the birth of Jesus). 

Remembrance

Chris Peters, who grew up in another popular Railway colony, Kharagpur, but now lives in New Delhi, says, “Christmas Eve culminated at either Midnight Mass or a Watch Night service in one or more of the churches outlying the boundaries of the Railway colony. Christmas was a social time within the colony, with friends and neighbours dropping in to wish each other and then returning home for lunch, replete with chicken curry and pilau rice, after which, everyone retired to bed under the whirring punkah (fan) for an afternoon siesta. Visitors dropped in again in the evening for an elaborate meal, and then everyone headed for the ball. I was very small, but I remember the adults jiving till the early hours of the morning. Very little of that exists now. While there is a dance, families prefer private celebrations at home,” he says. 

Margaret’s husband, Leon, recalls the life of a typical railway family living in small towns in north Bengal in the 30s and 40s. His father was a Permanent Way Inspector—today labeled as “Class C,” but then known as “Class III”—senior subordinate position. The family lived in typically comfortable and well-maintained bungalows assigned to Class III senior subordinates. On the salary of a senior subordinate in those days, it was possible to afford domestic help—a cook, an ayah for the children, a sweeper, dhobi (washerman) and a mali (gardener), the last usually a railway employee assigned to maintain several railway bungalow compounds.

“My father actively organised social events at the Railway Institute in north Bengal. Also, spontaneous hospitality was extended to visitors (whether family, friends or total strangers) who stayed and boarded with the family from time to time. I don’t know what it’s like to celebrate Christmas there now,” he says. Leon believes the Anglo-India Ball held across Railway colonies in India kept alive the tradition of ballroom dancing, which families and relatives visiting from aboard would participate in. 

Let the music play

In his book, Anglo-Indian Identity, Knowledge, and Power: Western Ballroom Music in Lucknow, author Bradly Shope, who resides in the United States, spotlights how Anglo-Indians relished Western popular music from the 1920s to the 1940s. This music, popular at Christmas balls, promoted respectability in the community. While the music mimicked styles from America and Europe, its celebration was distinctly local. Beginning in the first half of the 20th century, Western ballroom and dance music began to make their way into Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and other cities in North India via gramophone disks, radio broadcasts, and sheet music from Europe and America.

“In the 1930s, an increasing number of dance halls, railway social institutes, auditoriums and cafés were built to cater to a growing number of British and Americans in India, satisfying their nostalgia for the live performance of the foxtrot, the tango, the waltz, the rumba, big-band music and Dixieland. Influenced by sound and broadcast technology, sheet music, instrument availability, the railway system, and convent schools teaching music, an appreciation for these styles of music was found in other communities. Especially involved were Portuguese Goans and Anglo-Indians. For these two groups, it served to assert their identities as distinct from other South Asians and highlighted that their taste for music reached beyond the geographical boundaries of India,” he says. 

Also Read: Is community design the answer to India’s housing woes?

Also Read: Why casteism remains the Indian queer community’s Achilles’ heel

Also Read: How a cultural mix of community influences the style of those living in Pondicherry