Cold comforts.

                                                                

December is here and it is definitely winter. Even as the air is warmed by sunshine and exhaust fumes of vehicles, there is no mistaking the nip in the air. The quickly darkening evenings, winter wear, winter food…drive home the fact that the warmth lies everywhere except in the air.

In Kolar, as a child I wore the knitted sweaters my mother made for me: Green to match the school uniform, half sleeves for play time, and colorful full sleeve front open ones for other occasions. My mother procured the skeins of wool from Delhi, wound it around chairs and made soft round balls stored in plastic covers. I remember her Ks and Ps covering notebooks as she painstakingly followed patterns and fitted us with warm clothes every winter. As we outgrew sweaters, she unraveled them. Washed, dried and once again wound into balls they were transformed into new ones. Left over wool made lively colorful sweaters. Winters also bring memories of cough mixtures, handkerchiefs for runny noses and avarekalu making its sudden appearance in breakfast and lunch dishes.

Mysore winters made mockery of my woolens and as a college student I preferred the trendy ready-mades worn more for fashion than warmth. The ubiquitous avarekai and the Dasara exhibition with its white enormous papads remain strongly embedded in those memories.

Bangalore - definitely colder brings memories of a young mother packing her little girl in woolen caps, sweaters, mittens and stockings. Every tiny sneeze or cough was cause for worry as I tried to ward off every winter threat to the tiny bundle in my arms. Balloons and rattles from the kadalekai parishe drew happy cooing from the baby and warmed the young mother’s heart.

Stuttgart, Germany with its snow and slippery ice, Christmas decorations in shop windows, bare trees and layers of warm clothing also remind me of the gluhwein (mulled wine) and gebrannte mandeln (burnt sugar almonds) in the Christmas market at the city centre. People pink cheeked and red nosed bent against the freezing cold, talking –with words misting from the mouth. Holiday in Budapest with temperatures twenty below zero, snow billowing white and ghostly in the dark night, laughing with friends and family, with a little girl dressed up like an astronaut –no sly finger of winter could pierce the armor her mother fitted her in, striding the icy sidewalks with her gloved hands in the hands of each parent marveling a world so white and cold.

Jaipur, with its green parks, wide roads, folk music and dance made mockery of our visions of a dry desert landscape. Winter roughly began with the fireworks on the last day of Dasara, slaying a monstrous effigy of Ravana.Woolens and the wonderful birds that flew out of glossy bird books and descended on the trees confirmed the onset of winter. Hot milk bubbling outside sweet shops in large woks, with a layer of thick cream served in clay cups called kulhar with hot jalebis for dunking is a treat. The vegetable mandis  filled with vegetables and fruits –peas, carrots, beans, greens, beetroots….- one drooled over ,missing them in the harsh summer months.

Chennai, even with its rains and sea breeze kept our woolens packed in the attic. The lovely music season with strains of music from temples in the neighborhood, women in rich silks and jasmine in their hair rushing to auditoriums to lose themselves to the divine classical music on winter evenings showed us a city that had retained a strong traditional flavor despite the growing modernity. A tsunami that ravaged the lives of many people, the resilient people working out their lives again that fateful winter remains a lesson in courage for me.

The world surrenders to the seasons holding on to memories, as the cycle of life turns its relentless circle. I have left a little of myself in all the places I have lived and taken a little in return. My mind tends to sieve off the sad or uncomfortable memories that come in a package when I remember a place and I replay the warmth and happiness I derived from the many winters of my life. It is comforting to have happy memories to fall back on .The journey of life continues and soon the winter month for New Year resolutions will be here, bringing a new slate to write upon,forgetting the broken resolutions of the past year.