Sweet Smell of Approaching Winters

An early youthful night flanked by thin flimsy mist, a lonely pathway with no disturbance of moving vehicles and jasmine flowers oozing the sweet and lingering freshness in the dark. Top this concoction with some evening dew and generously pour some deep silence around to make an aphrodisiac for the romantic spirit. Call it enchantment for the soul.  I drank a cupful last week in the heart of Delhi as I walked by a strand of night blooming jasmine.

It’s mid-October and the evenings in my part of the country are fairly pleasant. There’s definitely something magical about these mild wintry evenings. The air touches your being and calms your nerves like nothing else.

Those who belong to Delhi know that this city at this time of the year doesn’t offer you any solace. With festival season being on, the market crowd becomes maddening and the traffic appears to be bursting off the seam of the roads. Long queues of cars laden with flashy packets and festival sweet meats crawl at a snail’s pace like a trail of ants on the black veins of the city. The noise is deafening and the pulse reaches volcanic fervor when tempers fly.

I guess I just got lucky. I had stopped by at a friend’s place to offload a Diwali present and decided to park the car at a distance and walk through a back alley. As soon as I set foot inside the lane I knew I had the right decision.

The lane opened to a small community park which was flanked by shrubs of jasmine along its boundary. The sweet scent of the flowers rose from within the park and spread within the entire lane signaling the onset of the winters.

Mmmm.. winters are approaching and soon the city shall be talking about the evening mist and morning fog, best places to buy sweaters and hogging on tandoori food. The fat Punjabi aunties laden with all their jewellery and their Amritsari English accent will be all over the lanes in Karol Bagh buying shawls and woollen(s) for their respective Sunnys, Buntys and Sweetys. Others more sophisticated ones shall be thronging the malls wearing monkey caps and polo necks. The girls from the NCR shall be competing with each other on who can carry those high boots and short skirts with a sweater and a top and somewhere along the line, people like me would be wrapping themselves in a quilt and shall sit at home watching the Idiot box exclaiming..”brrrrrr kitni thand hai…agar pakode mil jaate toh….he heh he”

I can already smell the sweet approaching winters and well…some Tandoori Kukkad on my plate.. !!