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Long time ago in Bethlehem, it may have been a silent night, indeed, but here on the western seaboard of Lanka’s coast in the year of the Lord two thousand twenty-three AD, it was anything but silent.

Nature’s resounding orchestra, accompanied by a dynamic percussion section, which had been playing its overtures all month long, was rising to its ear-shattering crescendo. The winds howled, the sea roared, the trees shrieked, its branches swaying to and fro like a ballerina’s arms outstretching, the avalanche of rain furiously fell to a rising tempo beat; while dazzling lights flashing continuously freaked and froze and made visible for an instant nano second, the full horror of the nightmarish night.

The tempest was in full force venting out its mad fury when, with a loud thunderous crack and an electrifying crash which gave me the shivers fearing the roof had fallen on me head, the door burst open and Santa swaggered in from the cold, looking like a rain-drenched cock with its red cockerel shrunk beyond recognition.

For an instant, I couldn’t make out who this abominable snowman was, who had crashed my teak door with such a grand entrance, and I remained transfixed to my seat unable to move a muscle. It was only when he drew out a bell and, in a trembling voice stuttered, ‘Ho, Ho, Ho, may… may… merry… Chris…Chris…Christmas’, that the down-rated rupee dropped.

‘Ho, ho by Jove it’s you at last’, I said, rising to my feet to do the honours to my late night guest of honour. ‘Thank God, you’re here. I thought you’d never come. Not in this this floody foul weather.’

But from his frost-bitten lips, no answer came and he remained standing like a frozen yeti.

‘Hang on for a second,’ I said as I headed to the drinks cabinet, ‘I got just the thing to thaw you in a jiffy. Remove those wet attire or else you’ll catch a chill, and warm yourself by the fire.’

I peered into the old treasure trove and saw my last remaining prized bottle of XO cognac I had bought long before the country had gone bunk. Unstintingly, I poured a liberal shot of the literal brown gold into a short glass thinking, what the heck, I’ll be able afford to buy another one in the miracle year that was to dawn in  twenty forty eighty – only 25 Christmas Eves away – and returned to where Santa stood, warming his hands before the fire.

It was a shocking sight, to say the least, to see Santa divested of his familiar red robes and stripped by the incessant rains to his banyan and undies. It served to remind me how ghastly pompous MPs in national attire or in bespoke full suit would look had judicious opinion succeeded in stripping them off and left them bare in their loincloths.

Snta gulped down the life restoring elixir as if his God given immortality depended on it and pretty soon recovered his power of speech. ‘It’s a miracle you survived the ordeal,’ I said.

‘Not quite as much the miracle,’ Santa shot back, ‘of how you lot survived economic Armageddon and somehow still survive the ongoing battle. I, at least, can say I’m God blessed but you lot were and are god damned. That’s the beauty of having a shepherd who had faith in miracles even while crossing a burning rope bridge, handicapped with an infant in hand, blessed with a puerile flock that yet believes in fairy tales’.

‘So, there’s still hope then,’ I ventured to ask while pouring him another strong shot of the flaming golden lava.’

‘Of course, my dear fellow, hope sustains and sates every want and need of man. It is the cardinal duty of every politician worth his salts, to nourish and to keep alive the flame of hope in every man. They must do it by any means, with humbug, with deceit even with the most outlandish lie. ‘

‘But what will happen if the promises don’t materialise?’

‘Nothing at all,’ he said. You simply move on to make an even more fantastic promise. The more grandiose the better. It will also make a visionary of you, not with pedestrian ideas but a statesman, a seer who can divine the future, who can predict the wants and needs of posterity twenty-five or fifty or hundred or five hundred years hence. Of course, it means that the present generation must endure great hardships so their children’s children and their still unborn progeny can have a better life.’

The present lot,’ Santa went on, ‘can lie in paupers’ graves, but can rest in peace till the promised raising of souls come along, assured that, by the sacrifices borne,  their descendents will one day inherit the sweet fruits of their toil and sweat. Hope has the unmatched advantage – unlike golden nuggets — that it cannot be calculated in pounds and pennies, measured for length in miles or weighed for weight in tons’.

‘But how can people be that gullible and habitually fall for it?’ I feebly asked as I did the honours again by refilling the glass that cheers to fortify his sermonizing spree.

‘In your country’s case, it’s simple. When even in this day and age, some don’t believe man ever set foot on the moon, your countrymen were so credulous to believe that their leaders could bring rice from the moon in ‘70 and distribute it to the people free.’

‘They didn’t ask why the rest of the world wasn’t doing the same. They didn’t ask how it could be done. They took their leaders word at face value. Still do. Politicians thrive in this paradise of fools. When one party’s promises fail to realise, you simply change the party and opt for the other with another set of promises. The parties change. The belief in promises stay the same. What a right royal bunch of born suckers, y’all are?’

‘It’s not fair,’ I made bold to say. ‘It’s not fair at all to judge us by what our elders did fifty-odd years ago.’

‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he laughed mockingly, ‘it’s not fair, you say.  Very well. Let us see.’

Santa was beginning to thaw before the fire, melt with every swig he swallowed. But he had none of his usual Christmas bonhomie. He looked grump and morose. As if he was bent on amusing himself at my expense to get something heavy off his chest. And using me as his punching bag to vent his frustration.

‘You seem to be quite smug about being self-sufficient in electricity, especially about selling off the excess to India?’

‘Selling the excess? What nonsense,’ I said. ‘We live in constant dread of power cuts all the time.’

‘You are referring to the fossil fuel sector. What of the tapped potential of solar energy, the excess sold to India on connectivity? What of the massive renewable energy project regarding green technology done in collaboration with Germany and Australia that produces green hydrogen and green ammonia? It has also benefitted your capital port since green hydrogen is used by the shipping industry. And you have established a solid export market for green hydrogen. You are well on your way to becoming the green superpower. The huge investment has certainly paid off handsomely.

I was flabbergasted. Before I could chip in, he carried on in the same vein.

‘At least, you’re well off now with the investment made in setting up IT Zones and IT campuses everywhere paying rich dividends and making your country the Silicon Valley of Asia. No doubt your heavy investment in 3D printing is going great guns too. No wonder you have the world’s 18th largest army to defend your investments.’

‘Not bad,’ he continued, ‘not bad at all for a country that claimed to be bankrupt last year. The way you have bounced back, why, it’s nothing short of a miracle. But who am I to doubt miracles, when I’m one of its prime manifestations?’

I wondered whether it was the brandy talking but there was no slur in his speech nor pause in the steady current of thought. In a bid to assure him that he got the wrong end of the stick, I told him gently that these visionary projects were still but a twinkle in our leaders’ eyes, the first foundation stone laid in our mind to invoke in us the fervent hope that in 25 years’ time, we will not only be the masters of ourselves but also masters of the world.

Santa was in his elements when he answered. ‘You laughed at your elders for falling for promises of rice from the moon. You are no different. The rice that feeds your appetite today, are these trendy futuristic goals you have been recently promised that puts you not only on par with the world but makes you superior to the rest.’

‘Different promises. But same naïve faith in promises. You lot have slept for seventy-five years since this island became a free nation. And you awake from your hibernation and you expect those castles in the air you dreamt in your slumber to materialise overnight?’

‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ I said to defend my leader’s vision of transforming this land into the world’s most developed country, to make the bud’s blossom, a soon to be reality for us all to enjoy just 25 years hence.

‘Of course not,’ he snapped. ‘It took many an equal temper of heroic souls over eight hundred years to build the Roman Empire before its decline and fall in 476AD. And you lot think you are capable of becoming a superpower within 25 years. Perhaps, the only pragmatic investment hope offered — that will give Tesla a good run for their money — is the promise to spend billions to set up an AI research hub in this land where people lack BI or basic intelligence.’

But this time, the ho-ho-ho let off, didn’t go down well with me. Enough he was swinging my best brandy, he was also insulting me in my own home. I decided to straighten it out straight away and directly asked him, ‘do you carry some grudge against me?’

‘Not at all my dear chap.’ Santa grew despondent and said, ‘It’s nothing personal. Forgive me, I’m just letting off steam. It just saddens me so and strikes me with remorse to know that here I am, out on this tempestuous night, ready to brave a storm of snow or sleet or rain, just to deliver fancy gifts to relatively well-off folk in comfortable homes but utterly helpless to answer the desperate pleas of wounded little children on the Gaza strip who have asked nothing more than  blood for transfusions that might save their innocent lives after emergency operations in candlelit makeshift hospitals, not even 50 miles from Bethlehem where our Lord was born on such a night as this 2023 years ago.’

‘I grieve the more for, today, man has forgotten, or patently ignored His Sermon on the Sinai Mount which contains the quintessence of His deep philosophy and, instead of turning the other cheek when slapped or rendering the coat as well to the foe who demands only his shirt, ignorantly continues to extract a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.’

Santa reached for his red topped hat, wiped the falling tear from his eyes and said, ‘Forgive me how can I spread merriment in a world still dark with ignorance. But duty I must do, and must attempt to spread the cheer even with heavy heart. So without much ado, here is the gift you most desired this year.’

He thrust the package to my hands and, with a final swig of the remaining drink, wished a Merry Christmas and left, saying, ‘I go, crucified with guilt. I’ll see you next year on same eve,’ to board his sleigh, flown by his rained on deer on this stormy turbulent night.

No sooner had he gone, I made haste to unwrap his Christmas gift and found to my delight Tesla’s AI powered multi-functional house cleaning robot, the very thing I asked, ever since the housemaid left abroad to clean other peoples’ houses for a few dollars more in some foreign land. At the bottom of the bag I found something else. It was a rolled up parchment.

It said, ‘This is writ in vanishing ink. I cannot risk my brand value if what is promised goes unfulfilled. Anything is possible in that god forsaken isle, the present seat of Pandemonium. It’s what you most desired but were too scared to ask. So I give you the promise of not one but two elections in the coming year. Choose wisely. But beware. Trust not those who bring gift horses but hide their dental history. Remember the middle path is always the best.’

It was signed Saint Nicholas aka Father Clause. I read it thrice before it disappeared. And with that, I proceeded to make the last of the brandy vanish down my throat whilst wishing the world and me a Merry Christmas.

But the thought of the poor children of Gaza couldn’t wash down the guilt in me; and as I drifted into the magic night of Christmas, I said a silent pray’r that the divine light of Jesus will reach them through the smoke of war and grant them the miracle of a lasting peace.