North Indian winter is not unfamiliar to me. I have been exposed to it since 1980. In the 10-year span of my being in Uttar Pradesh (UP) as a student of intermediate and undergraduate studies, never ever did I miss the daily bath any day, nor did I use hot or warm water for the same any time.
In those days, we lived on a very minimalist consumption, without ever thinking of being a minimalist.
We never owned any sweaters in the first three years. We used what was in the stock, and returned them when we left the study house for the next stage of our training. But when I arrived at Najibabad (Dt Bijnor) as a college student I purchased a half-sweater and later on, a khadi-woollen jacket (Nehru coat?). Then I had a shawl donated by Fr Varghese Kanjirakompil, though I never asked for it. I still am in custody of the same.
Thereafter (1990) I have never faced a North Indian winter. In those days, Mercury used to dip to even 2 degree celsius, and it could be very cold. I hardly ever used a shoe, though nobody prevented me from doing so, I just didn't feel that I should use shoes. In those days, the fingers and toes used to be afflicted by chilblains and the swelling on them would stay all through the winter. Then come summer, there is relief. Still, winters were enjoyable.
After 32 years, I am facing another winter. In between, I had occasions to be exposed to colder weather in the US. The Mercury hovered around 4 and 5 for several days; but never felt any difficulty as such, except once, when I went out with a lightweight canvas slip-on for a walk, in less than 5006 meters, my feet began to get numb. But this time, in Sitapur of East UP, I found it tough. By mid-December, I started to make use of hot water that was available in my room. I observed that Sun was hiding consecutively for several days, and appearing only for a couple of hours on some days. Sun, a very threatening presence in the summer, is now a welcome guest. You are glad to see the sun appearing! And, most of the people out here - young and old - enjoy to sit lazily and 'eat the sun' 😊 (dhoop khana). It was just uncomfortable to sit in the room - whether bedroom or the office room in the college.
I began to add up layers - 4, 5, 6. In spite of them, the cold is strong enough to pierce through them. Today with the temperature indicated 11 degree, I am able to work, as I have these layers on me. I did go against the typical conventions here - going for an early morning mass for the Holy Cross sisters who are about 7 kilometers away. I used the 15-year-old faithful Unicorn. But I do adequate preparation - 6 layers, a lower part of the rain suit to additionally protect the legs, shoes, hood for ears, helmet and two pairs of gloves for the hands. I manage well. Didn't feel greatly handicapped, in spite of the thick fog.
On some days the fog is so dense that there is a visibility of hardly 10 meters and you have to be extremely careful if you are using a vehicle not to hit a pedestrian or a bicycle rider on the road, or even get yourself into close contact with some bigger vehicles, typically tractors which move slowly, but which would have hardly any indication of being there on the road - neither tail light nor a reflector. This could also be true with other vehicles, especially trucks, though not all that often.
Is it the age or is it the severity of the cold making the difference - I am not sure. However, when cold water falls on my hands, it hurts. It is painful! My toes are all swollen and red. Within the shoes, the toes get jammed and numb, and at times, they hurt. Cold penetrates the body, it appears, mainly through your ears, at times through your nose, through your fingers and the toes. Packing these extremities well, appears to reduce the severity of the cold.
In my younger days, when we had to go for a morning purchase of vegetables and fruits, on a bicycle, I used to feel the nose hurting, almost like being cut, and we used to cover our face up to the nose with a muffler, to prevent this. This aspect appears less now. However, as I go for a ride or jog, I sense that the warm air exhaled through my nose immediately gets condensed outside the nose, making the nose dip with water drops.
With great difficulty and strong determination, I try to spend some time in the open - jogging for about 2 kilometres. Gradually the body gains warmth, the feet and ankles become loose, but after 20 minutes or half an hour, I feel the skin of my hands and shoulder, they are still very cold.
Our quarters constructed in a shady corner have several rooms that do not let the direct impact of the summer sun. In winter, they are like ice boxes. If required, a heater is provided - but I feel uncomfortable seeking the added support of such a device.
At night, you rely on a wooden cot, with a 6-inch thick sturdy mattress. I use a woollen blanket to cover it. (These new age woollen blankets, very colourful and affordable are found very commonly on the roadsides. They are available in varying thicknesses and lightness. It is learnt that these are recycled products from waste plastic. I am not sure how reliable this information is. The difficulty lies in getting them cleaned - washed. It would be a tough task either to get that done by a machine or manually. The bucket of a washing machine may be found insufficient to hold one such blanket. So the ways suggested are to get them exposed to hot sun, when he would finally emerge; or get them dry-cleaned. Being UP, it wouldn't be surprising if the dry cleaning may just mean that they are exposed to the sun and then neatly packed in big plastic covers and given to the customers.) Then I use a cotton sheet over that, another sheet to serve as the first layer of my cover. Over that a thin woollen blanket, a double layered case for the woollen blanket, which itself serves as a blanket. And on top of it, a thicker woollen blanket. For the initial 2 or 3 minutes the bed feels very cold, and then gradually your body makes it warm. However, the space of the mattress you are not using becomes really cold. So the movements in your sleep will let you feel that.
In my earlier tryst with the North Indian winters, our protection used to be quilt or rijai. They used to be mattress-like stuff, usually bulky and generally not as shapely as a typical mattress. However, one quilt would usually take care of all these sheaths which I am currently using to keep me warm in bed, though they are not aesthetically as appealing as the blankets. The quilts are usually used with an added cover, which could be periodically removed and washed, and can even be offered to someone else, with a fresh quilt cover on it. In some cases, we just use another cotton sheet, which would keep the quilt away from direct contact with the user, and when it is offered to a new user, a fresh sheet is given. I also hear that there are modern rijais, which are very light and shapely, but will keep you warm in spite of their lightness. (When I visited a rural parish in the diocese of .... in USA, I found the women's forum of the parish utilised the church basement for quilt making as a fundraiser for their charitable activities. The quilts were very attractive, shapely and light. I understood that it was a meaningful socialising activity as well for the senior women.)
However, for now, the house has provided a thicker blanket (of the modern-day wool - most likely, plastic), which can be encased in a warm and washable cover, with a ziplock. It's heavy, but can substitute for the several layers of protection I was trying, some which invariably found their way to the floor during the sleep, making one wake up shivering at night.
Come February, though I enter the protected 'cave' of my double-layered woollen cover, by 3 or 4 am, it would make me so warm as to sweat profusely - my dress and the cotton sheet I use as my first cover below the woollen blanket is all soaked, but you just step out and you are cold, and the wet sheet becomes colder; you have no choice but to discard or substitute it with another, during the best hours of sleep!!
I always have as a stand-by, my neatly packed sleeping bag from Decathlon, which I have very rarely put to use. In an emergency, I think that would serve the purpose of giving a warm mattress in the cold season. I had a very bulky sleeping bag, left over from Bhuj earthquake relief materials. But that would require your own car/jeep to have it carried around without much burden.
Winter Beautiful The winter of the Northern Indian plains has its own shades of beauty. Our winter does not do away totally with the greenery. Many of the trees, like drooping Asoka, Senna siamea, Peltophorum pterocarpum, Tectonia grandis, Dalbergia latifolia, Mangifera Indica, Litchi chinensis etc. retain their leaves, though there is patjhad (fall) happening, it does not deprive all the trees of their green cover. But what surprises me is the whole set of flowers that emerge during the winter season - Roses are bright, there are Phlox, Antirrhinum, Petunia, Dianthus, a fabulous range of Chrysanthemum and Dahlias all of which add to the charm of winter.
Even the fog, the dripping dew in the morning, at rare times, turning into a cover of frost on the ground etc add to the mystique of the North Indian winter. For people like me born and having spent a greater part of our adult life in Keralam, these are novel experiences - interesting and varied, in spite of the toughness involved. Keralam remains God's own land sans all these varieties - no severe summer, hardly any winter. Your clothing is almost the same all through the year. It is easier to put up even with the minimum of resources - a minimalist living, with no great concern for cooling or heating of the built-up environment. And it is refreshingly, and for a typical North Indian, breathtakingly, green.
In winter times, the North Indian public places and public transport (all the more) are found to have a carpet of peanut peels. It is hardly ever cleaned, the floor, the seats all bear the mark of it. Almost everyone eats peanuts - generally roasted on coals, and every nukkad would have a thelewala vending peanuts. Usually, it is a local product, and it thus serves as a livelihood for many and a source of protine for the common people. I am not sure of the local habit, however, at our house, we usually have them after the dinner, accompanied by a piece of jaggery as a tastemaker. While for me, bananas are still welcome in winter, for the UP people, they are unwelcome in the winter.
For the common people, the other typical means of keeping themselves warm is a hot tea - that spicy, sweet, strong, milky tea - may be just about 50 ml. For people like me, it 250 ml is the minimum quantity for a tea. I gladly note that alcohol is hardly ever a means for the common people to keep themselves warm, though it is much more freely accessible than in our God-forsaken God's own country!
As for eating in general, people say, in winter you tend to feel more hungry, and you eat more - more than a month with winter, I have not really felt so, in spite of my increased fitness module. I still feel only as hungry as I used to be - managing very well with a maximum of 2 meals, often with one.
As I ride through the hazy streets for the morning mass, I can see at several places, the labourers or vendors who have to be on their tasks early in the morning, trying to warm themselves up with some fire. They tend to use anything they can get their hands on, including tyres, and while the fires warm them up, they indeed add to the pollution burden of the atmosphere.
My coworkers here tell me that this year we are having a more severe and more prolonged winter spell for this part of UP. As indicated in the beginning, I too feel it is rather bitterly cold here. But still it's ok. It's manageable.
I dared to ride from Lucknow to Sitapur on February 8th morning - in spite of all my protection, I felt the cold biting, and seeping into my bones. After about 20 kilometers, it was still dark, I decided to stop. My hands protected with 2 pairs of gloves were hurting. I warmed myself up with a hot cup of tea, and made my hands warm over the conventional oven of coal. It sustained me another 30 kilometres, and I had to stop and warm myself and the hands up. Though sun was already out and bright, it was not sufficient to keep the extremities warm. Then it was the last leg, and somehow I managed to be back on the campus by 7.30 and comforted myself with 2 large mugs of hot masala tea, and then a hot water bath.
February 14 Basant at the Doorstep - It should have been a very tough day around in my former campus of SH, Thevara - with all sorts of possibilities and hype related to 'valentine's day' - Perhaps, a trend set in in a matter of last ten or twelve years. But out here in Sitapur, so far, no indication of such a day! However, in the air is spring. 14th is a holiday on account of Basant Panchami. I can sense the spring on the doorsteps. The air is still cool - 18 to 20 degrees at noon. However, it is no longer biting. New shoots are emerging. Our vines are pruned. There are a host of small flowers in the grass - forgotten little beauties. There is a carpet of yellow flowering puliyarila, white spotted green carpet of kayunyam, beautiful violet, pink, yellow, golden and blue flowers of the varying grass species.
Though formally the winter is said to be ending only with Holi in March, from now on, it is hoped to be mild.
February 21 The morning showed mercury at 18 degrees, for the first time, Sarriyan Maluhi AQI was shown at 139. Not on account of El Nino or La Nina as The Indian Express carried an article today. But on account of a slight drizzle that has washed down the particulate matters and brought it drastically down by more than 100 points. First time since I arrived in July, I was observing AQI of this area at this level.
March 25 is Holi. Holika is burnt and all the evil of the cold months is said to be gotten over, with warmth spreading around. This time, exactly after Holi, the day has begun to be warm. And mosquitoes have come back with a vengeance. The very timid drain flies which come to our washrooms in small numbers in the winter, and remain almost numb, are increasing in numbers, and have become more energetic. They tend to fly into the bed room also. Though so far, they appear only a visual nuisance. But mosquitoes persist, they swarn around incessantly, managed to enter the rooms in spite of the nets, hum their music into our ears. It is gradually warming up!!
But all the trees, shrubs and herbs are into celebrating their life in inflorescence, with bees and flies showing forth a very vibrant life.
Water is pleasantly cool. Not yet warm or hot. You can now shed your dependence on the geyser.
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