A Rosy Tale of Winter

This city has started taking place in my heart. With the green monsoon, here comes the winter!

There comes a day when the early rising Punekar will step out of his house, pause in slight surprise, and try to clear his eyes. When the blurriness remains, the he realizes that the light fog is to blame for the reduced visibility and that winter has arrived on padded feet.

Winter arrives quietly in Pune and is greeted with relief by the city. Pune has always lived, figuratively and literally, in the shadow of a metropolis that makes much of its monsoons. But winter is a season Pune can lay claim to as its own. Unlike the disruptive machismo of the Bombay rains, Pune's winter is gentle in both arrival and tenure, mirroring the  happy and laid-back ways of the place. A trip down the sleek Mumbai-Pune expressway through the misty Western Ghats more than amplifies this difference.

In the Pink The phrase that the locals use to describe the first month of the winter says it all. Punekars bask in “gulaabii thandii”, literally the “rosy cold”. During this time, citizens, in their light woolens, can be seen bearing a light rosiness of both cheek and demeanor.

Since Pune's winters are temperate, especially in comparison with the frigid bitterness of many North Indian towns, they can rouse residents to action rather than cause them to cower behind a thick quilt. Once the indolence of the early cold morning is defeated, a walk in the balmy ambiance is the best way to kick off a day. Given that parts of commercially booming Pune are sometimes be-deviled by smog towards the evenings, the mornings remain the best time to soak up the sun-kissed winter at the 'tekri'.

A favorite‘ tekdi’ or hillock. Pune is blessed with an abundance of these easy-to-climb hillocks, which offer vantage views of the city, especially in the late evenings. Many of these tekdis have a temple at the summit, providing the spiritually-minded with a reward for their exertions. For the more material at heart, tekdis also offer flat summits for exploration and the pleasant company of fellow wanderers.

A favorite variation of this is to walk up the nearest

Winter is also Avian Season for bird watchers. Many lakes in and around Pune receive several varieties of migratory birds. Pune has inspired many as amateur ornithologists.

Since winters in Pune rarely descend into single digit temperatures, the city is never hobbled by the weather. As January ends and the sun becomes less oblique, winter fades away just as gently as it arrived. Each year, the hard-to-impress Pune old-timer will insist that the city was not what it used to be. But come next November, this sentiment will be assuaged by the winters of Pune's content.

Rain in Winter

There were intrepid clouds, heavy nimbus, shades of violet, purple, greys and a peculiar orange circumscribing the skies. Fields of yonder, accustomed to the Sunshine, its dazzle and warmth... Wanted the soothe of the rain drops, the first mirth of the fertility awaiting the green grass and flowers of all colours... The scent of the earth and the song of the air on beats of thunder. And so it rained. It rained, clouds of the South Sky did pour. Drenched Soul.. Soaring spirits. Love, may be in Pune.

....before there was the first inflorescence, colours vanished away from the flower palettes. May be it rained too heavy. May be it din’t rain as much.

Charm, as it is, what goes around comes around...some molten shades, evaporated and amalgamated in the clouds that had decided to pour. They came with the show of glamour, lightening along to keep the Earth mesmerized  And like a magician, the clouds did spellbound the heart and soul, which were more than ever young this season. My dear city, happy with some rains somewhere, hopeful of the clouds that would come and pour unconditionally.

(Unconditional, has a clause yet of having no condition. Expectations seeps in, in form of being formless.)

And we, yearning and learning, passively. Praying some rains, though dismaying the clouds. Nature has its own plan, destiny its own. Dried up earth was soon to be sold.

And then it was to happen. Divinity into action. This time of the celesta, the darkest clouds, thick with hues of gravity, each shade conveying its own virtue. The smoked browns talked of the experiences carried along while floating till this patch of Land, blues talking of the depth the cloud had, the intensity it had, the rains it can cast. Grays telling the stories of the unexpected , the Blacks talking aloud of the ability to engulf, some White here and there telling of the silence that wisdom attains and that glistening violet, the unending enigma! This was it. The rains were to come... it had to pour. The bosom of the Earth had to be damp. It had to be damp to be off the enrapture of being barren . Be off the mirage of clouds. For this time it was real. It was to stay. Forever.

And it rained. There was a melody in the heart of the Earth, there was a poem in the rain drops, there was harmony in nature. A Love Song was born. Perpetual One.