Home is where the hearth is: Snuggling by the fireplace on a winter night

Nothing like the warmth of the fireplace when the mercury plummets and the sun plays truant. There are several options in the market from wood-fired ones to those run on biofuels

You wouldn't have missed the ubiquitous fireplace featured in many of the fairy tales you read as a child. There was a certain romanticism about watching an old lady sitting on a rocking chair with her knitting gear, soaking in on the warmth of the hearth—a visual captured effectively both in print and in cartoon films.

But fireplaces are no longer just fantasy, and people have been using them to get more than a little relief from the harsh cold in northern India—especially this year, with temperatures in Delhi dropping to their lowest in more than century in December. While