Warm Winters

It was a B.E.A.utiful day...!!!  (as Jim Carrey would say)...:)

A cute little baby winter, standing innocently at your door steps, watching you as you wake up...and when you go out to check the weather an adolescent chill pinches your arms...she is just playing with you as she is yet to learn the rules of nature...you don’t have any option other than to just smile and cover that area of your skin with your warm hands...that touch is just enough, to make it warm again. This trick is then passed to the water...it’s cold enough for you to come back to your senses...

As the day proceeds, the cool breeze’s play is still on but is now supported by clouds...and the time when you look out from your window you see pretty shy drizzle falling from sky as if God is now shedding off his last remains of rain from his lap...Aaah! A treat to a longing soul, my Lord!

The noon is quiet and slightly cold; everyone’s sleeping peacefully as if they haven’t slept for ages and need a serious relaxation...You take a look around to find new leaves on the plants and some extremely beautiful and lovely floral species that flourish only in winters...It’s the time for change...new births! Beauty is always inspiring...and what can be more beautiful than this moment that has inspired me to write again...

I have a terrible habit of dwelling in the past that sometimes makes me hopelessly miserable...it takes no time for me to open my memory treasure box and look at the stuffs dumped since time unknown...

I love winters...the first feel of her...just love it! It amuses me when I get confuse on what and how many warm clothes to wear and finally come to decide that let it be just one, after all it’s winter, how can you enjoy it without shivering!!! What’s more pampering than wrapping yourself in a rajaai and just sit idle, being too lazy to move!!! What’s more adventurous than walking through the fog with an icy cold nose...and when you blink you find your eyelids freezing, too!!

When we used to be kids, my brother and I, we used to play with papa what we called “the-cave-game”...two people were supposed to hide inside the blanket and burrow themselves completely and “the wolf” was supposed to look for the weak spot and attack the cave...it was exciting and thrilling!!! I remember, then I used to avoid the quilts because I believed them to be cold stuffs (because their covers used to be so!!!)...then papa used to make me sleep with him in his quilt. It was just trust that made me go to him after my bitter experience, he he, :D...This story is reminded to me by him every winter as if he is telling me for the first time...Then there used be my cute pet cat (now I hope I should have named her, in fact all of 3 generations!), who loved rajaai’s...that furry ball used to sit beside me and we both used to enjoy the warmth...!!!

Home is so beautiful in winters; thanx to my parents’ interest in gardening...It is filled with colorful and elegant floral plants that make me proud every time I look at them. I used to miss home in winters. Partly because of the reason that in college it was usually examination time due to which students were a rare site on campus in the evenings...and for a grieving and afraid heart (due to exams!!) it is almost intolerable. The freezing and dry wind of Rajasthan had a somber silence that it never failed to convey to my heart.

These and so many other memories came gushing over my mind at the mere feel of the cool breeze...Winters are always depicted as cold, unemotional and unpleasant, but trust me, they can be cold only when you don’t have any warm memories...I am sure you all must be experiencing some déjà-vu...I would love to hear it from you...good, bad...any? I must have skipped something...

The change has begun and I can feel it...