Kolkata's winter charm now smothered in smog

Winter is the only season in Kolkata when it's not too muggy to enjoy the outdoors, have picnics and visit fairs, but the AQI is worsening and no one seems concerned

- SANDIP ROY

Dense smog on a cold winter morning in Howrah, Kolkata. GETTY IMAGES

(GETTY IMAGES)

The first time I was invited to the Jaipur Literature Festival I showed up fashionably dressed at the inauguration party sans cap. I thought my pedestrian cap would ruin my outfit at the glamorous Rambagh Palace. But the party was open air and I froze my head off. I skipped all the fancy icy cocktails. A kindly bartender who had an electric kettle was a lifesaver, serving me whisky with hot water.

Later I encountered the Bengali writer Manoranjan Byapari in the writer's lounge. He was swaddled in sweaters and of course, a monkey cap. I congratulated him about an award he had won recently. He nodded absently, peered up at me and mumbled, “It's so cold here.”

The Bengali in winter is a cultural trope, some would say cultural joke.

Though the winters of Kolkata are temperate at best, temperatures hovering between 12 and 25 degrees Celsius, the Bengali dares not risk the chill. He muffles up in sweaters, cardigans, scarves and the infamous monkey cap. There is no snow in these parts but every Bengali mother knows the peril of him or dew. Him falling on your head at night is akin to a death knell for the fragile Bengali.

And yet despite the falling him, it's also a happy time. In my memory it is our winter of content made glorious by sundry things.

Winter in these parts has a sound of its own. The quilt fluffer man comes around twanging, offering to fluff quilts that have been sunned, ready for the nights when temperatures might fall to a chilly 17 degrees. Kolkata never gets cold enough for treats like old Delhi's daulat ki chaat, lightly sweet and airy.

Instead vendors appears with Joynagarer moa, their singsong voices selling the only-in-winter delicacy, a soft crumbly ball of parched rice and jaggery, densely sweet, studded with raisins and nuts,