The entire world celebrates Christmas, the streets and pathways, and houses are beautifully decorated with lights and designs. Few celebrate throughout the month while some do only for a week. It is a day in winter when the birthday of Jesus is a festivity of joy. No one can think of December without Christ if they celebrate or not. It may seem unbelievable as it is less mentioned or known that Christmas was illegal in the USA till 1836 from the 1600s.

Why does the USA mention Christmas is illegal?

To know about the reasons, it is essential to learn about the Puritans. They were basically from England but fled to The USA. They were the minority group of pilgrims living in America who brought a revolution in the country. During their revolution, they had changed the meaning of holidays, traditions, and festivals.

According to them, holidays are not productive, it is a waste of time. They believed that these holidays and celebrations distract from the core of religions and rituals. They believed that any practices that are not mentioned in the Bible should be removed. The holiness of Christ should be celebrated every day. It cannot be accomplished in one day.

Puritans’ revolution had brought a change and banned the celebration of Christ in The USA. This did not last long till ages which came to end after the 1800s. There was no Christmas till the 19th century but after which there was a removal of the ban.

Victorians Christmas celebrations

Until the 19th century, there was no birthday cake for Jesus but with the Victorians, there was a restart. It was during the Victorian age the popularity was rising. The making of cards, gifting to family and friends was a part of their tradition.

By the end of the century, it was celebrated with decorations, foods, and drinks with family and friends. Slowly, not only in the USA and England it was popular throughout the world.

The concept of wishing to be loved on this specific day was introduced in 1843. A business of printing cards wishing “Merry Christmas” not only boomed but also made this day popular. About 1000 designed cards were printed and sold in the market during the Victorian Era. No feasts, no holidays, just a wish card was enough.

Sir Henry Cole introduced the conception of card making and the first design was set by JC Hosley. Slowly the market was no longer bound to the beautiful cards but small toys, decorations were sold.

During the Victorian age, families were important which made them celebrate Christmas at home. It was a great inspiration to the entire world. Though in The USA it was officially illegal, people celebrate Christmas at home with family. Even in modern times, the Christmas trees are decorated, homes are beautified with decorations and lights. It is celebrated at home with relatives and family.

The main aim to ban Christmas in The USA is to redefine the meaning of holiness. The Revolution of the Puritans existed for a century which slowly ended by the Victorian Age.

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We all know by now how amazingly Virat Kohli and his team of boys ended India’s overseas winning drought in test matches.

Apart from that, the records being broken, the sweet victory on Sri Lankan soil after 22 years is all going to be a part of cherished memories for years to come. It is not every day that a team full of such youngsters and players who are in and out of the team come together as a unit and give a stunning performance like this.

What exactly happened here? What changed?

There will be a detailed analysis obviously and the team management is going to find out what actually worked so that the same formula can be repeated in future as well. Next test match series is with South Africa and that will be the real challenge. But let’s first focus on how things have worked out at the moment and have that somehow made M S Dhoni irrelevant to the team?

First of all, it is all about Virat Kohli’s persona, charisma and the aggressiveness that has rubbed on his team members. Most of them are around his age and somehow can relate to his body language as well as mental attitude. The hunger for winning a match has somehow been clearly visible. Instead of being passive and trying to avoid losing a match, the players seemed in a mindset to go out and conquer the world! The fear of losing is out and passion for winning is in! Whether it is Ishant Sharma who bowled his heart out or Amit Mishra’s come back with such a beautiful spell or Ashwin’s phenomenal performance, the credit goes to them as much as to their captain Kohli who has been able to support them and give them the freedom to give their best.

With Dhoni, the team looked jaded, tired and in a reclusive mode even before the match started. It used to look as if they were touring to draw the series or to save their face, instead of showing the mindset to win. Also, Dhoni’s tactics in a test-match usually looked defensive instead of attacking or aggressive, the way he acts in a one-day match or T20!

It is just one series and the jury is still out whether the same set of boys can repeat this feat against stronger and tougher teams like South Africa, England and Australia, but the change is in the air. Dhoni is definitely an amazing captain and player in one-dayers, but the kind of change Virat is bringing in, would it be possible for the boys to perform under two different captains in two different formats of the game? Would they be able to give their best in one-days the way they performed in test matches? How would the team composition change under different captains?

All these questions will pose a challenge for Indian cricket per se and it would be interesting to see how Dhoni copes up with the changed dressing room! We still need Dhoni, but going by the trends, soon he may not be missed much!

Better days are ahead, for sure!

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“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
― Isaac Asimov

The world right now is suffering from a lot of problems that involve violence. The political unrest in many countries like Syria, Israel, Afghanistan, etc. have caused massive violence among the people and taken many innocent lives. Similarly, the world has turned into a global village due to globalization and liberalization and somehow has made communication easy. But even then, somehow the humanity seems to be losing its importance. There have been zillions of cases in recent times where the Indians have been recklessly beaten up by the people in foreign countries be it Australia or America. Even after such advancement we are still entangled in petty issues of racism and religion.

A recent case this time has been reported from Birmingham, England. An Indian Sikh man has been beaten up ruthlessly by the local people. The video has gone viral on social media and this time again the crowd stood as mere spectator to the harsh incident. People didn’t even bother to stop the fight and peace out among the people. In the video you will see the victim struggling alone while fighting the attackers.

While the victim is still unidentified, the shocking part is that the West Midlands police claim the video to be 6 months old. The reason of the whole incident still remains unclear, though many people claim that the root cause can be racism and on the basis of religion, as per the tone of the video. What is more shocking is that the victim alone is trying to fight against the group of people during the attack and not a single person showed up from the crowd to help.

This is not for the first time that these kinds of attacks have come into the light. There have been many cases where Indians have lost their life in such brutal attacks. The main question that arises here is about proper actions taken against the accused. Few days back, the much talked about documentary, ‘India’s Daughter’ was released and banned in India, which depicted the whole incident of the 16^th December rape case. The documentary tells about the harsh realities and the mentality of the Indian society.

But then, I would like to ask BBC, why don’t they make a documentary on such incidents taking place on their own ground? Why don’t they bring out the facts and mentality of the people in their own country? It is very easy to raise voice against something wrong but at the same, it is very difficult to realize the mistake and work towards it.

Hope things get better in the near future and humanity is saved by the so called peace-makers who are working against such incidents!

Peace-out!

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Indian hockey might have away from the spotlight for a while now but here comes a chance to be at the forefront as a new-look Indian side, under the helm of newly appointed coach, Terry Walsh, go into the inaugural Hero Hockey World League Final where the team will open their campaign against higher-ranked England on their home turf. Tough opponents further awaits them but that should be their worry at all.

Sardar Singh who will lead side, should see this as a perfect opportunity as to where does Indian hockey rank among the world greats. Even though, our side is ranked number 10. in the world, the tournament will provide India a perfect build up for the World Cup to be held later this year at The Hague, Netherlands. With the World’s top seven teams in fray here, India could not have asked for better preparation for the quadrennial event. India should consider themselves lucky to be one of the participating teams in the HWL Final. India are also slated to host the prestigious Champions Trophy later this year and it is now high time the past masters of the game take advantage of these big-ticket opportunities.

The past couple of years have been woeful to say the least. Apart from the silver medal in the Asia Cup, India didn’t have anything major to show in 2013. The Indians finished a disappointing sixth in the Hockey World League semi-finals in Rotterdam, but the tournament provides the eight-time Olympic champions a perfect stage to prove their detractors wrong. But a tough road lies ahead as heavyweights – Germany, Australia and Netherlands await. India are placed in Pool A along side reigning Olympic champions and world number one Germany, world No. 4 England and seventh-ranked New Zealand. Pool B consists of Australia, Netherlands, Belgium and Argentina.

Coach Terry Walsh, who took over from Michael Nobbs, has ‘other goals’ in sights. As quoted in the Times of India, Walsh says, “Our goal is improvement as we go through the tournament. We want to see improvement in four areas — physiological, psychological, tactical and basic skills.”

Even though, the Indian hockey team do not remain the ‘favourites’, the hope of playing at home conditions and without any favorable pressure, can add spark to success in cusp for glory.

With Agencies inputs

Photo: Hockey India

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