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Eastertide in Delhi was the last community celebration by the resident British before most of them went home to Old Blighty or to the hills, with Simla being the favoured destination. The Kashmere Gate area was the centre of activities, with St James’s Church drawing a large congregation since the Cathedral Church of the Redemption had not come up in New Delhi then and the Viceroy and his aides were among those who attended the Easter Week services there, the four main days Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when the big party was held on the lawn. Bishop Thomas Valpy French of Lahore, once on a visit during transit to his diocese, remarked that it reminded him of a typical English country church gathering. Bishop French died at the Cape of Good Hope while returning to England and was probably buried at sea but is still remembered as a pioneer of the Church Missionary Society. One of his children was born in the Agra Fort during the First War of Independence in 1857. That was after Easter, a particularly painful one for the pregnant Mrs French.

At the Catholic church of St Mary’s Easter celebrations had an Italian flavour. The church had been rebuilt, after its demolition in 1857, by Father Keegan with substantial help from the Dominga family, who owned a lot of property in parts of Delhi and at their matriarch’s Mughal-bestowed estate near Okhla where later Masigarh came up and Christians uprooted from Raisina during the building of New Delhi were resettled. The Italian influence on Easter festivities continued up to 1935 when the newly-built Sacred Heart Cathedral came to be headed by Irish Archbishop Mulligan.

Talking about those times Georgie’s father, the old sacristan, used to recall the bringing of Holy Oils from Agra Cathedral, made on Maundy, Thursday for use in ceremonies throughout the year. Along with them plain zZaitoon-ka-tel or olive oil was also brought. It was not extracted from the olive trees near Akbar’s Church but imported from Italy. Once the vessel containing some holy oil got spilt and the sacristan had to be sent back to bring some more by the parish priest, Fr Luke. The tableau of the Garden of Gethsemane (where Christ was arrested) set up in the Church however smelt more of Italy than of Jerusalem, said on old parishioner in 1958. If memory serves right his name was Augustine and he used to live in Mor Sarai after which St Mary’s was also known as Mor Sarai-ka-Girja. Some idea of those days can be had while visiting Free Church in Parliament Street, which though not a Catholic institution, has palm trees imparting a Mid-Eastern ambience.

Besides the party at Ludlow Castle, the British held a beer party at the site of Bu Halima’s garden in Nizamuddin and another one in the Qutub complex which is said to have been started at the time of Major Robert Smith who repaired the Minar and put up a cupola on it but which had to be taken down as it was too incongruous. At one of the parties a couple got so drunk that they were found asleep near the Alai Minar but with deep scratches on their arms and legs. It was conjectured that they had tried to climb up Alauddin’s Minar though they could not remember what they did while in a beer stupor. Easter parties are still held at different places but are not as zestful as yesteryear ones, though the Catholic community has grown larger with South Indians and people from Jharkhand and Bihar outnumbering local Christians. But one misses the Italian flavour, the fathers sitting in the church garden, some smoking cigars and others thinking of Good Friday ceremonies after the Maundy Thursday dinner special dish of a virtual paschal lamb bought from Haji Barati’s shop by the cook Motia.

Parties on the Ridge, just across Rajpur Road, were planned at the Delhi Club, opposite Qudsia Garden. From the Club the picnickers went to the Ridge via Ludlow Castle Road (now Raj Nivas Marg). The favourite sport indulged in before lunch there was rabbit-hunting. Hare were abundant and became the favourite symbol of the traditional Easter Bunny. Wading into medieval history, it is well known that the emperors Akbar and Jahangir took part in Christmas and Easter festivities, which included the burning of the effigy of Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Christ. The British had borrowed some customs from those times as practiced by the early Armenian Christians. The Easter parties held in Nicholson Road by the Skinners are however now part of memory.