No winter in Mumbai

No winter in Mumbai 

My love for the city of Mumbai is abounding. I love this town at most moments and hate at some others. I hate Mumbai for its lack of discernable winter season. Winter appears flickeringly, just enough for some of us to change the dress code, from habitual year-round half sleeve to the full sleeve shirts. 

Mumbai bypasses the exciting annual ritual of taking out rajais and sweaters from the attic or trunks below the beds, the nightly romance of snuggly sit-around fire, eating gajar halwa, rounds of tea during the day, and whiskey in the evening. 

 Mumbai homes do not even switch off fans, drink colas and beers in January, and roam nights without sweaters in the dead of night. Most don't own sweaters anymore. Keeping rajais and blankets is a waste of space in 500 sq ft flats most of us live. 

 Sitting on a broken wall of Carter road promenade on a hot and humid morning, my mind goes into overdrive to relieve thoughts of the few good winters I have had. 

Delhi winters are most enjoyable. By end of November, we would be bundled up in warm clothes by 3 pm, switching on heaters by 5 pm, and opening whiskey or rum bottles by 6 pm. In January, angithi is lighted in the evening to provide us warmth till midnight. 

We would plan weekend family picnics to the Lodhi garden or the Suraj Kund. The riot of green, yellow, and pink flowers of numerous Delhi gardens match colorful sweaters and dupattas. The aroma of food waffled through the garden, as thermos flasks full of gin and tonic make rounds among men. Winter in further up north India was at once both, severe and exhilarating. Tea and biscuits habitually served in summer would get replaced with whiskey and paneer pakoras during afternoon socials. 

I recall once disembarking from the train at 3 am in January at Ambala cant station. A driver was waiting for me to take me to Sri Ganganagar on the border of Punjab and Pakistan. Cutting through the thick fog and bitter cold, the driver handed me a bottle of cheap rum to make sure I lived through the journey. 

My last tryst with cold weather and winter was a few years back when my wife and I spent a week at Auli in the Himalayas, staying at 10,000 feet in a log cabin, watching the peaks of Nandadevi and Trishul from our hotel balcony wrapped in blankets. 

The most severe encounter of the winter was in the street of Boston in January. The hotel where we stayed had a false fire alarm. For the next 2 hours, we roamed downtown Boston in our pajamas. We found an abandoned car that was open and took shelter until the hotel took us back in. 

Nowadays I dread thinking of winter and preparing to face it. I do not feel like acquiring winter clothing for which my tiny cupboard does not have space. 

I am happy in half sleeve shirt in Mumbai and contended amidst 30-34 degrees Celsius sitting on a Cater road promenade.

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