Christmas is here

The nights have turned magical. Vines of light - blue, green, yellow and red - punctuated by fruits in the guise of stars hang from trees dotting the by-lanes of Bandra. Traffic is piled up in an alley where the celebrations have spilled out of a house; uncles and aunties weave between stuck cars balancing glasses of whisky. Car windows stay rolled up and no one honks. The heart of Bandra is a village and in one of its courtyards a tree has burst into a blossom of impossibly blue stars. Christmas is here.

Elsewhere there is traffic.