Fond memories of winters

The chill is here. Delhi wakes up to foggy mornings everyday, the evenings are getting colder. The capital has already recorded its first deaths due to cold this season

The chill is here. Delhi wakes up to foggy mornings everyday, the evenings are getting colder. The capital has already recorded its first deaths due to cold this season. But with the onset of winter every year, I turn the clock back in my mind.

My mind rushes back to the chapel, the portico where we practised our Christmas carols and skits on the birth of the Lord and Virgin Mary. I travel down memory lane and get back to the school where we had a fete and at least a two-day long Christmas celebration before the school closed for winter vacations.

But winter for me is not just about school. For, winter is just the beginning of a culinary journey. The tastebuds that would be often repulsive during the scorching summers and sweaty monsoons of Calcutta would get aroused by the aroma of different cuisines in winters.

Winters gave us a chance to pile on the calories, which could be easily hidden under layers of warm clothes

For this was the time to savour the hot kathi rolls, the various chops with fillings that included a wide range from potatoes and cauliflower to fish, mutton and what not. This was the season when we gorged on the Mughlai parathas (sans the sweat), feasted on peas kachori and woke up to the smell of fresh jaggery and the sweetmeat mowa that people from the districts came to sell.

Winters gave us a chance to pile on the calories, which were easily hidden by layers of warm clothes, and were meant to be repented later when it was time to shed clothes during summer.

This season also meant sitting by the Ganges and having ice cream or playing football or horse riding in the Maidan ufffd the only stretch of land in Calcutta the real-estate wallahs haven't managed to grab yet (though they have not given up on trying).

For some of us, this was the time to binge on alcohol, the time when Press Club gave us discounts on the already cheap booze. Park Street was in full splendour and so was Bow Baracks in Bowbazar in central Calcutta where the Anglo Indian community huddled together.

Winters was the time the land sharks gave them a break and the poor guitarist could give thoughts of where to go next if Bow Baracks was sold a break and strum his guitar to some Elvis.

But the arrival of turkey in New Market, ringing up the unsung Anglo-Indian cake makers, the aroma of freshly cooked sausages and ham with salad ufffd these are the images that I can live with all my life!

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