​Hi Friends ......christmas the most wonderful time of the year. 

So wish you all a wonderful christmas.

A Christmas message: I think in our academic schedule you have lot more of occasions wherein y’all have received from various dignitaries and luminaries a good number of orations. And afterall I would only add up to that heap of Messages. But, I’m glad that I am invited to speak to y’all on a very special occasion that is Christmas and to a group of intellectuals who have reached  a stage of serious perseverance in your own field of education and a serious minded youngsters who are also determined about life’s purpose, aim or goal.

What is this Christmas message to a group of like y’all. I  am afraid that your minds are already made up to listen to a hammering religious discourse on Christ, salvation, saving of the world.

Christmas is the beginning of a classic love story with all the right

ingredients:  infatuation, pursuit,  risk and relationship...

This is a festival that ought to have reminded us of a revolutionary personality in the history of the world. This particular person from the time he began his public life was nearly always with a rift with the powerful of the society.

“Dear friends”, the Holy Father added, “you who are following the fascinating and demanding journey of research and cultural endeavour, the Incarnate Word asks you to share with Him the patience ‘to build’. Building your lives, building society, is not an undertaking that can be achieved by distracted and superficial minds and hearts. … In our own time we feel the need for a new class of intellectuals capable of interpreting social and cultural dynamics, and of proposing solutions that are not abstract, but concrete and realistic. Universities are called to play this vital role, in which the Church will provide her committed and effective support”.

Well its not a matter of pride that I would say that the history is divided in accordance to his birthday and the calendars are set according to this humble birth.  But surely , just a normal babe with extraordinary living of life’s convictions did really turn out a new page in the history of humankind.

Dear Friends

Christmas is not a festival of damn good celebration of party and night out…..its not a damn good celebration of ball and pub…….its not a damn good celebration of colorful lights and glossy dress and it just goes on. For that matter all the religious festivals do not in fact have any of this that we tend to do. Christmas is one such religious festivals that got to get into our minds something different that has ever happened in the history of the world. I am not just talking to y’all some fairy tale but indeed I’m just only repeating or recalling an incident of the history.

The European world today began to claim that Christmas is a pagan festival or a non Christian celebration. It had its roots in some ancient Roman celebration. However, the believers of Christ took that festival and gave it a meaning of the saving act of God.

Today I would like to address to y’all a few issues that matter us a lot in our day to day lives. Everything begins with the individual.  We have heard in the recent months a lot of agitation against corruption, a lot of agitation of creating a new state,  a lot of agitation in the Kerala about the dam that would destroy the so called Godz own country and many more and needless to say about the financial world.

It is the dream of every young citizen of India to live a decent life, sometimes a posh life and sometimes a powerful dominating life. But we often forget that we are basically human beings who live in a society which is faced with two contradictory life situations. Poverty and Riches. We have the poorest of the poor who are being downtrodden in the remotest parts of India due to lack of education and we have some of the world’s richest guys in our country.

We the modern or contemporary generation too is faced with lots of challenges in this world of ours. Especially we guys living in the cities there’s always a vulnerability of the religious, family and social values to be at stake.  We live in the midst of cyber culture, that engulfs all degrading valuesless lifestyles. However, this cyber culture does spread throughout the world a sense of  awakening to justice and a decent life too and that’s the positive side of it. Lets stop at this juncture and look behind and ahead too.

This is the scenario friends that we are floating on And what does Christmas has for us in this complicated, knotty, convoluted world? This festive moment recalls that gresat personality who was part of these things which I mentioned above but more a part of the pharisaical or religiously pretentious atmosphere.

Who would have guessed that in that time and place One would be born into

our world who would one day fill his life so much with the experience of

God, so much with the love of God, that in him thousands upon thousands

would be moved to make the incredible claim that they had actually met

their God in person.

Today we talk about this person called Jesus who just lived a normal life but a fully human life. The world today needs a generation of compassion, who would feel for the other fellow human being.  Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.  Calvin Coolidge

That Christmas babe, as we say was born into this  world for the ‘other’, as the famous philosopher Levinas would say. The world today needs a generation that would stand for the values of respecting human life.

As we celebrate this savior’s birthday, we remember countless babes who aren’t privileged to celebrate their birthday ….due to abortion….a modern day holocausts…..which is rampantly spreading out worldwide.   And how  are we going to reach out in addressing this holocaust?

 Me and you are humans and no one is big or small ( of course not the matter of size or physique).  A poor worker in a field or an employee in US-based Kenexa Corporation, engaged in human capital management solutions and services both deserve the same respect and dignity of human life. This is what the Christmas babe tells us and that’s the reason why God made flesh was born in a stable in the midst of poor people. After all everyone is a child of God.  

So lets try to suggest ourselves with what gift this Christmas can we offer to the other… to your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.

Oren Arnold

Wish you all a merry Christmas, may the joys of the season fill your heart with goodwill and cheer. May the chimes of Christmas glory add up more shine and spread smiles across the miles, today and the New Year to come.

Merry Christmas!!!​