My winters

Winters. You know I always thought that I was not a very nostalgic person. I thought nostalgia is for those people who never lived at the moment or give their fullest and hence wants to go back to relive those experiences. I thought I will never behave that way. I always enjoy the moments which I love with all my heart or I seriously hate some of them and as a result would never like to go back. But somehow, today while I was taking my daily dose of 2Km walk (a desperate attempt by a typical Bengali person to burn all those nolen gur rosogolla calories ) a whole lot of memories rushed in to my mind by the name of winters and neither of them are related to Delhi , my current address. But surprisingly enough for me, all of them are from my childhood and younger times in Kolkata.

             My earliest memory of winters is when my skin dried up, especially of my face and my mother is forcing me to apply mustard oil (majority of the times she would herself take up the task of  forcefully massaging that pungent smelling oil ) on my body and burning face while I stand on our kitchen window. The foggy mornings when on the terrace my jethima ( wife of my paternal uncle) used to form boris (urad dal fritters) and dried them. I too tried my hand in that artform but no, that is not my cup of tea. All those trade fairs, book fairs, food festivals Kolkata is famous for, they would really make the winters warm. That navy blue pull-over of my school uniform which of course I inherited from my brother ( being the younger sibling , you rarely get any new clothes / books). The school picnics, the family picnics, the small extended-family trips to Hazaribagh, Benaras etc. which contained ample supply of unnecessary food and drink supplies instead of sight seeing, the liquid nolen-gur or jhola gura as some might call it which comes in small pots, the makha sondesh (mashed sandesh) , the koraishutir kochuri made by Ma (puris stuffed with spicy and sweet pea stuffings), the plum cakes and fruit cakes the credit of which also goes to Ma ( I sometimes wonder how my mother is such an expert, talented female I have barely seen any), all those cauliflower and radish pakoras and the list can go on and on and on.
                 I never realised that my parents are genuinely trying to make memories for us. Because those who know me they will always say that I simply do not remember things. Whenever someone comes up to me to discuss something about someone (in simple words gossip or PNPC - Poro Ninda Poro Chorcha ), I would always look up and say ," is it? I don't remember", and they would get so irritated that they would get much happiness by making ME their subject of discussion with someone else. Those in house Christmas and New Year's party which you would always look forward to, not for meeting your relatives but for the food, those long queues to get into the famous Alipore Zoo, the awesomely decorated Park Street are all I can think of when it comes to winters. Winter in Kolkata does not mean cold. I still remember my then boyfriend had one denim jacket which he would wear, everytime we used to go out even when it was 13 degrees ( a very chilly evening for the people of Kolkata who would shiver at the name of the month of December ) or when it was 20 degrees of sun in the day. Winter there is fun, food and festivities. How amazingly, people in Kolkata can manage to be happy by forgetting all their worries and problems.
                 Delhi, the national capital, known for its winters can be cold, very cold sometimes for me specially as I am from the sith-kature City of Joy. Our parents don't want to visit us in Delhi during December- February for the freezing winters. The recent smog which has been covering the fringes of this polluted city is all I can think of the Delhi winters. Although the extreme sweet adrakwali-chai (ginger tea) in the roadside stalls, the strolls by the lanes and bylanes of Hauz Khas village, the Lodhi garden and the Red Fort, the Humayun tomb and the Qutub Minar in the smoggy winters have a sweet spot in my heart I doubt I am making memories to write about may be after 10-15 years. I miss the warmth not of the room heater but of the people, I miss the dryness of skin which would be remedied not by body lotions but by the mustard oil, I miss those sleepy mornings which would vanish away not by the sight of green tea but by the sight of steaming hot kochuri-torkari (puri-sabzi). I miss the hustle bustle of Chistmas because of the warm and sweet smell of home baked cakes and not for the thudding loud noise of pubs and discs. I miss those old sweaters which I would still wear sometimes to get that old Kolkata feel. I miss the sound of tiger roars and the sight of Eden Garden floodlights from the terrace of my home, I miss my city, my Kolkata.