Reminiscence of Winter in a Tropical Terrain
By Abhinita Mohanty
As a child I read an Italian proverb, “They who sing through the summer must dance in the winter”. It used weather as a euphemism for happiness and sadness respectively. To my naive mind it was that, can I ever dance? Winter barely breathes in my land. Summers are real and winter bleaches over like a short dream. In school, ‘foreign’ poets wrote about sad winters and grim snows as I wondered if I will ever see a snowfall in real life or if snow can hit our heads and injure us! Today, for me, as an adult, winter means joy and summer is fatigue.
Apart from my other idiosyncrasies, my maximal craving for winter delights under a prolonged Indian heat
is the circlet of tragedies! What creates delightfully hilarious situations to vexed reactions is when I wear a jacket or a scarf during ‘non-wintery’ months. After all, how long can yearnings hibernate?
I was born in a sultry, humid region, and I am now staying, in an even hotter place. We define winter as the two or three months in a year when we don’t sweat if we keep the fan regulator halfway from its optimal point. It is not surprising that those who live in tropical weather look in awe at snowfall on TV screens. Those who have enough time, desire and pennies visit the ‘winter wonderland’, that is a European holiday. Those dreams remained in the distant horizon when I visited Europe in May. Yet, I enjoyed the trip and strode through the cobbled streets of Paris, Rome and other cities with light-hearted glee. Yes, it was possible to walk so much without the stickiness in the dermis.
Christmas movies on Hallmark and Netflix influence my winter reverie. My dream to eat classic Christmas food (mostly potatoes cooked in myriad ways, pies and cakes and all things ‘glazed’) emanates from books and comfort movies. In India, Christmas celebrations are often constructed within private homes of Christians, and one will find a star here and a plastic tree there. In malls and hotels, the plastic trees will have glittered leaves, and empty boxes wrapped in colorful gift packages. When you dine out, sometimes restaurants give you a complimentary dish of soup or cheese bread. However, New Year’s Eve is an altogether different story. Bars and discos open till late, drunk men guffaw the streets at the stroke of midnight and crackers appear in the dark skies like sparks from burnished metals. At that point, one rushes to the rooftop with a blanket or to the streets with a sweater vest. Then they realize, under the slight chill of night, that ‘winter is here’ for a short time and you need to take more trips within this amiably diverse country.
In my home (as a foodie) winter means the appearance of cauliflower dishes, spinach parathas and paneer on our plates. It is also the time when we get to relish delicious pulav with lots of vegetables. Those who drool on meat finally eat it more than once a week without feeling uncomfortably heavy or having those ‘meat sweats’! These are the comforts of winter for me.
When I see Youtubers giving tips to look classy the French or the European way, I restrain my rage. I dolefully look at their tricks to wear a jacket, scarf or a blazer on every clothing item. It is rarely a possibility here, even in winter. In winter, women will switch from colorful cotton sarees to that of richly embroider hues of gold and silver, velvet, silks or Banarasi sarees. Some will wear tighter jeans, full-sleeved tops, ankle-high boots, light sweaters and scarfs in the evening. During the day one may see many women keeping their hair untied and not tying them into ponytails of summer. Those are the delights of winter we relish. Instead of snow, we may have a cold wave or a chilled wind and a kinder sun. Instead of wool, cashmere or tweed, we may dabble in thicker clothing items and light sweaters. Nevertheless, winter is nothing short of charm for us when there is a calm nip in the air during dawn and the fluttering tourists who agog at discoveries of things within their country.
In every part of the world, winter varies. However, the dominant idea is of festivities and holidays, of Christmas and its crisp scent on soft street lights. For me, it is partially about festivities. It is more about the changing hues of skies, the fabrics and feeling the short and succinct breath of winter in the temporality of migrating birds and evening coffee. Perhaps, both of us will find the ‘other world’ more exciting and exotic than our own. In the end, for all of us, December is the last flicker of a bygone year, as we reevaluate our memories and look forward to new calendars and futures. This year, we all are united in a single dream of finding a vaccine for a pandemic and praying, wishing that the worse should be over soon. It is another hope at the end of December that we can make things better. In the fading glow of winter and at the threshold of a new year, we realize that despite differences in our economy, polity, color and style, we are vulnerable and we are humans.
Glossary of terms:
Paneer: a type of milk curd cheese used in Indian cooking
Parathas: a type of South Asian flat bread fried or baked. Spinach paratha is cooked with crushed spinach added to the paratha. Spinach is mostly available during winter.
Pulav/pulao: Indian style rice pilaf made with long grain basmati rice, an array of vegetables (or meat, usually both meat and veggies) and whole spices.
Banarasi saree: A sari made in Varanasi city. The saris are famous for their gold and silver brocade or zari, fine silk and opulent embroidery.
Meanings are taken from Google and Wikipedia, with minor changes in sentence structure or no change.
Abhinita Mohanty is a research Scholar in the Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences in IIT Madras, India. A few of her works are published in New Asian Writing, Feminism in India (FII), Outlook India's website, Green Ink poetry, Ponder Savant, Ayaskala Mag, Punch Magazine, Sheepshead Review and a few others.
