Cold comforts

I started the New Year sneezing. Hardly remarkable! Twelve months ago, I stepped – stumbled, rather – into 2014 with chikungunya. Compared with that agonising ailment, a running nose was a minor matter. Regardless, however, of my resolution to sniffle in silence, I grumbled loud and long.

In company with fellow sufferers, I blamed the villain generally held responsible for respiratory disorders – the weather. Since Bengaluru was unpleasantly chilly, what else could I do but fall ill?

Urged to keep warm, I heeded that advice. Ensconced in my cosy home, I exemplified the simile, ‘as snug as a bug in a rug!’ To ‘make assurance double sure’, like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, I unearthed protective gear in the form of Fluffy. That woollen garment bore no resemblance to J K Rowling’s canine creation, and was so called because of its fancy fibres. Purchased over four decades ago, the once stylish sweater had lost its shape and its original pink was reduced to a nondescript shade.

As I put on Fluffy, I was suffused with warmth (not merely physical) and swamped with memories. Thinking back, I realised that, as someone who had grown up in Delhi, I ought not to dread the Bengaluru cold. I remember how, when the minimum temperature plunged in the capital, my brother and I looked forward to our bedtime because of the hot-water bottles that awaited us. Unfortunately, they were not entirely effective. Wonderful at first, they would cool down halfway through the night. Occasionally, their stoppers came loose, causing the sheets to be soaked.

I also recall how we were woken up, at what seemed an unearthly hour. Longing for five extra minutes beneath our quilts, we would rise reluctantly to dress for school. With our teeth chattering, we got into our uniforms, each item of clothing making icy skin contact. We possessed an electric heater but our parents rarely used it in the morning, for my brother and I were inclined to linger before its glowing bars.

Several years later, I acquired a similar device in Ahvaz, a southwestern city in Iran, where my husband was constructing a power plant. Joining him three months after he embarked upon his assignment, I landed at Mehrabad International Airport in January, 1986. It was freezing in Tehran, where we enjoyed a snowfall, but Ahvaz turned out to be akin to Delhi, as far as climate was concerned. Our room heater and fleecy local blankets ensured considerable indoor comfort.

As for venturing outside, it was not a daunting prospect for me. In accordance with the strict regulations of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I wore a full-sleeved coat buttoned up to my neck and a thick scarf covering my  head and ears. Thus shielded, while I may not have welcomed the winter weather neither did I find it a bitter chill to swallow!