Subir Roy: Cold and in high spirits

It was pleasantly cold, but no more, when I set out around a week ago for my usual early morning walk. But back home when I sat down to enjoy the day’s second mug of tea, which went down well with the view through the bay windows, the fog arrived suddenly. It came from the east Kolkata wetlands nearby, in tentatively outlined waves, until all was enveloped in a frost-coloured morning from which the sun appeared to have been totally banished.

Winter in Kolkata is an on-again-off-again thing. It does not have the solidity of the north Indian winter; nor is it non-existent, as in Bangalore where the weather – try as it might – is unable to lose its mild equanimity. In Kolkata, the non-existent cold or its occasional fleeting intensity is food for endless conversation. So the cold is certainly on your mind for two months in a year, even if it plays hide and seek on the ground.

And I know when it is coming in a powerful burst by its forward scouts, the fog. In our ancestral house it was the fog from the river, muffling the sound of the foghorns of the ships at anchor; now it is from the wetlands, blocking out most of the sound of traffic from the nearby main road.

Conversation these last few days has in particular centred excitedly around newspaper reports that said, would you believe it, “our” minimum temperature has been in touching distance of “London’s” maximum! In a city that lives in peace with its colonial past, old jokes have resurfaced mimicking the expatriate who on occasions like these would have approvingly noted traces of “home” weather.

For me these last few days have meant finding and trying on woollens that had been permanently mothballed through our decade in Bangalore. The fun in walking in the cold suitably covered has been partly negated by the adverse impact of one’s changing waistline on some of the garments — but what the hell, this is hardly the time to deny yourself a good slice of fruit cake.

As I gloried in the cold I occasionally realised, with guilt, that this fun was for the likes of us and not for the poor, who could only pile upon themselves a few more tattered clothes; or for the dogs on the street, who shivered while they tried to burrow themselves into piles of fallen leaves left behind by the municipal sweepers.

But any notion that this was not a poor man’s merry Christmas was set aside when the sun came out suddenly and the wife and I rushed to the lakes to walk and share in its late afternoon glow. There they were, milling crowds of the not-at-all-well off, mostly young families with children in tow, dressed in their odd-bod best, enjoying Burradin with a day’s outing.

Through these few days I had virtually deserted my favourite daytime winter haunt, the club by the lakes where you can sit in the sun amidst the flowers and slowly down a coffee or a draught beer, keeping a watch on the cormorants and the flashing kingfishers. Who likes to sit out when the day is foggy and chilly.

But I had no choice the other day when I had to turn up there at midday so as not to miss out on a meeting fixed long ago with a visiting NRI friend from college days. I insisted we sit within the enclosed warmth of the bar and went on to break all rules and down a shot of rum and hot water, pepped up with a dash of lime. And then, as the afternoon progressed the sun came out. Not only that; it stayed put and for the first time in a week I was back to warming myself amidst the flowers as the youngsters got their boats out to row and the cormorants gingerly stepped aside and continued their search for fish.

The culture change that this cold spell has brought about is a near-total switch from the usual light and flavoured Darjeeling to rich, wholesome north Indian chai, dust tea boiled in milk and spiced with ginger and cardamom. Warmed by the brew, I have realised that the mosquitoes and cough and cold are all gone. Should you need to go out late in the evening to do a chore, you find the air sharp and clear — partly made so by the fall in traffic that the weather has induced. The club says New Year’s Eve cover charges include unlimited wine and scotch. I hope the weather lasts and wish I was back in my twenties.

subirkroy@gmail.com