Tale of winters in India: Then and now

The current spell of severe cold wave sweeping most of northern India reminds me of my early days when even harsher weather conditions could not dampen our spirits.

We lived in a spacious three-storey house, built by my grandfather, where the ground, the sky and of course, every brick in the middle space belonged to us. The rooms being aplenty, every member of the family had virtually his or her own independent accommodation. So much so, some portion of the house always remained unoccupied, often serving as guest rooms.

Yet, during winters, we kids shared the same bed, sometimes three of us under the same quilt. It came the natural way maybe because of the instinct to stay together. That gave each of us the advantage of additional warmth from our body heat.

“Wonderful”, I sometimes exclaim to myself cherishing those good old memories.

However, with changing times, our avocations and places everything changed. After all, they say, change is the only constant. Having to leave our good old hometown, we had to sell our palatial abode built so studiously. Now, in the new era, it was time to hunt for a ready-to-occupy flat because it was not possible to buy some freehold land and construct our own house while pursuing our avocations.

Following the transition, it was time to forget about the bricks and the walls that we proudly owned in our ancestral house. More important was the painful feeling of losing the sense of belonging of the open sky and the ground.

In the new situation, precisely, the apartment system, we had to be content with new faces at places where we had earlier “owned” the open sky and our own part of the land. The flat system, which has become a norm almost everywhere, we had experienced both its pros and cons. But that was inevitable.

Today, creating smoke in multistorey flats can be hazardous so is not permitted for valid reasons. In more sophisticated dwellings, fire alarms start blaring if smoke is detected.

Interestingly, those days, traditional charcoal-burning braziers were lit early in the morning in the open space in the centre of our courtyard. The emanating smoke spiralled upwards without causing any discomfort. Colloquially known as “angeethi”, this brazier was a multi-purpose gadget, which was also used for cooking purposes, heating water for bathing and to serve as a room heater till late in the night.

Before the advent of the electric geyser, we were served by “Garma”, which were cylindrical tin containers with varying water storage capacities. These desi water heaters were worked on fuel wood. Their newer version can be seen at the site where farmers are protesting near New Delhi. With minimum temperature hovering around 4°-5° Celsius, these are of great use to them. In the absence of electricity, the innovative farmers are using cow dung cakes to keep the fire in the imaginative water heaters going on.

As for many others, the transition from the desi smoke-emitting Garmas to the geysers fixed on the walls has been a welcome change.

The good old “angeethi”, the desi gadget, may have become irrelevant in cities but it continues to serve many purposes in the villages or less privileged families.

— Lalit Raizada is a senior journalist based in India.