Winter Specials

“Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.” 
― Oscar Wilde

It hit me hard on the face as I was taking an almost forced walk in the driveway. The much illustrious Delhi winters had arrived. Oh, how I loved its stroke, its presence all around me as it engulfed my every step and my half bare legs quivered in its embrace. It was nostalgic. It had always been nostalgic for me. The winters in my life had always, almost unfailingly been the time when all the drama happened.

  

2005. It was the first winter out of home, sans any supervision. Montage, the college fest was soaring in full swing. All of a sudden the school ‘Socials’ seemed so much lamer, and this so much cooler! For the first time in my life I tasted the cocktail of makeup, heels and reckless abandon.  It was funny how a couple of us decided randomly to volunteer for the security cell of the fest one fine day. Though I can’t remember clearly, I think the only reason we did it was so that we could frisk the really cute guys with those fancy metal detectors. I know it sounds really gross and pathetic but it was good fun back then. And of course, no one complained. Come to think of it, maybe some nuns did, not the guys definitely!

2007.In the icy cold parking lot of the college, we sat there smoking relentlessly as if there was no tomorrow and as if we didn’t have to show up at our respective homes. Woolf and Beckett had gotten too much to us by now and everything had become too commonplace to raise our eyebrows. Nothing was too much that winter. The drama lied in the fact that we had raged a battle against all the drama that could exist. Nothing could satiate me. Not a smoke, not a book, not a man.

I don’t remember the year but I was a quite small then and it was freezing cold outside. I was sitting in my room with my chocolate milk and mom & dad were having a nasty fight in the next room. I swear to God, it scared me so much that I moved near the window hoping that the torrential rain outside would drown their voices. I finished my milk and fell asleep on the chair near the window that night. The next morning was one of the happiest mornings when dad came to wake me up from my bed for school in his slightly irritating monotone of ‘get up-get up’ and mom asked me what would I have for breakfast. All this as if nothing had happened! I was so ecstatic to see them all normal that morning that she could have given me snails for breakfast and I wouldn’t have cared!

 Funnily all my boy troubles have also centered around during this time of the year. I fell in love during one winter and fell out of it another. I got stalked by a maniac one winter and got kissed by a stranger in another. And now comes the most dramatic winter of my life, the last winter. If I so much as begin to narrate what transpired last year, my life would start to resemble a mixture of too many cinematic potboilers. So I will not get into that. Rather, I would hope that this year the frigid winds bring with it some happiness and peace to me and my dear ones. It’s been a tough year but hey, winters are here. So hopefully good times will ensue!

The Gift

I gifted myself a book. Not bought, but “gifted” it to myself. It was perfect. All it lacked was the shimmering wrap that would rustle frantically as I would tear it open with the utmost excitement. But that I would handle. I opened the not so attractive brown cardboard cover and there it was, lying bare in front of me- “The Great Gatsby”.   I always wanted to read it but couldn’t manage the time for it among my various occupations of banking, having a heartbreak, cookery shows, being in love, obsessing over my wardrobe etc. Also, my loyalties had partially shifted to the motion pictures. The ancient figures in their splendid costumes, gliding like poetry, two sisters turning a crime scene spotless, an adolescent shifting continuously between the perplexing realms of sanity and lunacy; And then there was Meryl Streep who would make a devout out of even the most loyal cine-atheist.


But Gatsby, he had the charms of some old loves. You may realize after seeing him that the love that “was” was not dead but in hibernation and the imbecile was still very much capable of hijacking you. A book can open so many doors of reality and alternate realities for us. Sometimes, its just nice and comforting to read about a woman cheating on her husband, attaining some kind of poetic justice in the process. Or witness a family which can share a toothpaste but not their lives. Knowing that its not just me whose mad rush of everyday existence, compels him/her to give in to the lesser gods. And as the end approaches, seeing that love is capable of redeeming even the most vicious. And these are to name just a few.

 I gently grazed the cover with my hand and intently looked at those figures who resided the twenties of America. I took it to my room and carefully placed it beside the God of Small Things. I can’t wait to read it but it will be some other day Just like everything else, the vague, brazen, unfaithful ‘some other day’ will do for now.