I have been writing this column for the last three years now, dear reader, give or take. And around this time of the year is when a miniature tradition is religiously followed.
I write a column about the onset of winter.
I rhapsodize about the fact that the mornings will turn foggy, and the evenings chilly. I look forward to all the glorious food that can be enjoyed even more than otherwise as a consequence of the dip in temperatures – think kababs, barbecues and the like. I grow weak kneed, both metaphorically and actually, at the prospect of tumblers of neat whiskey.
Let there be no mistake: winter is by far and away my most favorite season of the year. I tolerate the rains and it’s best to not speak to me during the summer, but come winter, I turn into a fuzzy little ball of cuteness.
Well, except for the ‘little’ bit. That’s not entirely accurate.
And so it was the case today, when I sat down to write a column welcoming the winter.
Today happens to be the last day of this semester in my daughter’s school, and after dropping her off at the bus stop, I made my way back home, planning the outline of this column. Food, drink and convivial company ought to be the theme, I ruminated, and perhaps the odd mention of sweaters, monkey caps and socks. Maybe, I idly wondered, a paragraph or two on the need to wear slippers at home because of the cold, cold tiles. And how can one forget multiple cups of ginger tea? Why, I smiled to myself, the column had practically written itself out.
Until my attention was drawn to the sky overhead. It should have been, my brain noted, a pale wintry blue, with an almost apologetic sun for company. It was instead, my brain continued to note, a dull bleak grey, with a complete and marked absence of the sun, apologetic or otherwise.
I went back home and checked up on the weather online. And the weather online informed me with scarcely designed glee that there was a more than reasonable chance that there would be rain today.
With my command over the English language, and with the able backing of Google, I find myself unable to come up with a better word than the following to describe my feelings as of this instance:
ARRRRGGHHHHHHHHH.
Will it ever – and you must picture me with a plaintive face and an even more plaintive tone while you read this – stop raining?
I’d like to remind the weather gods once again: this is now the fag end of October. In about a week, misguided souls in this city will burst firecrackers and celebrate the festival of lights with noise. We’re done with the season of precipitation, ye gods. It is now the turn of the nip, the chill and the wintry fog.
And yet I find myself stuffing an umbrella into my bag as I leave for work, the very picture of abject misery.
Again:
ARRRRGGHHHHHHHHH.
~~
He doesn't expect the paradox to be resolved in his lifetime
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