Here, where I am, it was raining rivers!                                                                                                 Cascading down like a ravening roller squashier. The skies appeared to be sobbing and everything everywhere was sopping and dripping. The freezing weather has teeth carved from stinging steel. It bites like a snake in a strait. Gloveless fingers are the first to feel the piercing prick of a peeling pinch.

I had to brave the wet weather to do something I just had to do. Something which I should have done but had not done. No, I wasn’t going to church to add my gritty voice to the beautiful chorus of penitent worshipers in their annual show of sin-washing prayers laced with soulful songs. In fact, I had to drive past a dozen, largely empty, churches heading in the direction of the one earthly ‘church’ that was pulling everyone to its magnetic self at this time of year.

I was on my way to a temple simply known as TRAFFORD PARK (marketed as ‘the second largest shopping centre in Europe’) to watch a film, “ Life of Pi”, then tuck voraciously into some hot grilled NANDOS chicken before heading back home with… (Yes, you guessed it} PRESENTS that would buy me peace at home. That is, if I could drive my watery way to TRAFFORD first.

The surface spray was splashing in a 360 degree direction of continuous gushing foam. A uniquely lazy advantage: the carwash services would have to wait a bit longer than I had figured out.

The road runs like a classical tune out of Mozart: smooth and alluring! When sand and tar are slapped together in such firm mechanised embrace, you can’t expect anything less cuddly than the smooth skin of a raw Moyamba Mango. The temptation of a perfect road drives a good car through watery patches like a wanton speed boat slicing its teary way through the calm seas of Galilee.

This unending stretch of roads snakes on and on; always shooting itself out at different surprising angles onto a curious collection of even more snaky roads, splattered across the land like a giant spider’s faultless silky web.

TRAFFORD PARK! An obscene colossus of cold hard-core concrete, lashed into a tightly brace of tons of steel. An imposing intimidator! Whoever coined the phrase “concrete jungle”? I wondered.

I joined a steady stream of shoppers, sightseers and the occasional straggler surf-ling their silent ways along the well- tilled floors in columns that come and go; in directions as numerous  as the number of their needs or as varied as the dictates of their desires.

People? Well, yes people! For you could call us so. If you have ever been to a well-regulated funeral procession you would not miss the harrowing image here! We were mostly a motley bunch of bodies flowing along solid lines of separatist solitude. Everyone deeply locked up in their own individual cells of some gnawing torment. Recession- hit faces that never learnt to crease a smile even when Time was at its glowing best and smiled at them in an unfiltered flow of string-less bank loans.

But this was Christmas eve of 2012, and here we were chokingly caught up in a zombie-like march: a continuous conveyor belt of a consumer class totally consumed by the attractive spams of desperate advertising gimmicks. Well, THIS is CHRISTMAS time innit!

Do we need God? Do we need Christmas to be spiritually fulfilling? You try selling that BRAND in a Shopping/Spending mall, ‘Mr Preacher’ and see what you get in return for your holy merchandise!

But here we come, at the beck and call of a sacred dome of modern consumerism. Here, you worship with your credit card, not rosary beads! No one dared to talk to anyone. All looked, very closely, at THINGS. All avoided looking at anyone, as if a mere look would provoke a plague from the person you were looking at. The discipline to stay detached and aloof is regimental and suffocating. It is a ghastly drain on the soul of men!

How did those brilliant soldiers get out of their muddy First World War trenches and play football and sing Carroll with ‘enemies’ they had been killing minutes before? Where did they capture THAT faith from? Where has that faith fled? Will it ever come to man again?

I tentatively smiled in the general direction of an old man strapped to a collection of colorful plastic bags. You can’t tell which was clutching which, the man or the bag? My hope to conjure up in him a harmonious recollection of past sociable years is immediately dashed. He too had been infected by the ‘WALL’ Bug of personal imprisonment! HE doesn’t seem to want to recall any ‘glorious days of old’ when men actually smiled at men without insinuating something savagely salacious or insidiously sinister. THE BEAUTIFUL INNOCENCE IN MEN’S SMILES HAVE BEEN SMASHED OUT OF THEIR SACRED SOULS!

The old man beats a quick diversion and is lost in the crowd. Surprising how a man (even an old one tethered to loaded plastic bags) can spring a sprint when ‘attacked’ with a smile. I heard him swearing under his breath as he dashed to ‘safety’. I bet he would be later boasting to his mates in the pub about how he got mugged by a smiling black lad in a shopping centre, in broad day light. Perhaps, encouraged by the bubble in the bottle and the admiring stares of his peers, he may even try to be a little inventive at this point and start blessing his lucky stars for still being alive and talking. He would attribute some credit to his old army techniques which helped him pin the miscreant lad to the flood until an armed police convoy arrived at the scene to sort the offending scoundrel out. The old man is very likely to get a rousing toast in honor of his vaunted gallantry. He may even secure a pint or two in the process. No need to play the Pope and tell the truth to a bunch of drunken revelers. Afterwards, who would want to invite scorn unto themselves by confessing that they had been scared off by… A SMILE? When your mates are busy narrating tall tales about exploits that never happened, what harm is there in bringing your own particular imaginative story to the table and getting a pat and a pint in return? Afterwards, THIS IS CHRISTMAS, isn’t it?

I smiled to myself. I had to.                                                                                                           ‘Concrete jungle!’ where did I first hear that depressing phrase? I pondered, again. So unbelievably apt! How could a society have so much and yet seem to have so little? How could a ‘civilization’ that has tamed the seas and conquered the skies be eluded by a smile?

Lost in thoughts, I almost bumped into a middle aged lady. She thought she was at fault. She was profuse in her apologies. Perhaps a pre-emptive attempt at blocking off any thoughts of litigation from my mind. Again I shot a goodwill smile at her and was almost tempted into topping up my efforts with a “Merry Christmas” wish. I checked myself in time to avoid the courts. The lady might be a Buddhist for all I know, and the crime of offending “religious sensibilities” is a very sensitive issue. It is a serious sacrilege that could leave people fuming and foaming. BURGLARY is a more understanding pastime and MURDERERS have their own sympathizers.

IF on Christmas day I could not smile to strangers or wish them “Happy Christmas”, then what in Satan’s hell was I doing out here?                                                                                           Oh yes I know! Like everyone else, I had come to buy late CHRISTMAS presents for my loved ones, (watch a film and eat at Nandos, to reduce the shopping stress).

Where I come from no one ever told me that CHRISTMAS is not a time for selling smiles and trading ‘good wishes’. Or that it is not even an appropriate time for saying  “prayers”. IT IS A TIME FOR BUYING PRESENTS, AND (most importantly)… RECEIVING THEM! So go and ask for yours now; if you have not already received one!

OR, if you are like me who hail from a country or a culture where CHRISTMAS means much more than shopping without a smile, then you may fall on your face NOW and pray for yourself and all your love ones- add your ‘enemies’ to the count if you really want to harness the HAPPINESS, PEACE and HARMONY we all say we crave so much!!

And after you PRAY to God, don’t forget to SMILE to men!!