There is always something magical about December. And, it is not my birthday month!
The month has been very special for me, having grown up in Calcutta (it was still Calcutta when I grew up in the 70s) and studied in a school that ended its academic year in December. The last day was always fixed — December 12 — when I would rush home, relieved that the report card had the “promoted” stamp. The end of annual exams meant the fundamental right to sleep late. But no! How could one miss getting drenched in the joys of misty mornings! The street I lived in was a perfect antithesis of the English countryside: forget lush green grass carpets and flowering bushes.
What we lived with was a clinically practical tar road gently sloping downward into the arms of orphaned dry leaves congregated amid dust and small patches of water. The broad concrete footpaths on either side of the road had avuncular trees standing tall at regular intervals, imposing their shadows on the tar and concrete landscape. These large woody trunks left everyone guessing about their biological origin as they never flowered. Nevertheless, their leaves danced in gay abandon to the music of the soft breeze. And, every morning, the mist would leave its signature on the blade of a small but wild grass patch outside my home. This was good enough reason for me to recreate a Victorian-novel style landscape to fuel my romanticism.
Ah, December, when Calcutta’s Park Street is like a beautiful vibrant woman who is ready with her leisurely English breakfast of scones, jam and clotted cream set along with the dainty teapot of steaming brew of Darjeeling tea, its aroma tingling the senses of a gastronome.
Come sundown, this sprightly lady is all set to party for Christmas and ring in the New Year with her shimmering silk dress and stilettos.My shift to Chennai meant an abridged winter, a small oasis of cool moments. Whatever, it was still the best time of the year in this city, too. Chennai, by contrast, is the wise, old lady in heavy Kanjeevaram silk saris and diamond sets, attending dense Carnatic concerts. No late nights for her. She wakes up for her Margazhi morning rituals of temple visits and chakkarai pongal. Such a stark contrast to lazy breakfast times in Calcutta’s Flury’s.But the magic of December remains, albeit in two different avatars, in my native city and my adopted one. While one city lazes in the mornings and sizzles after sundown, the other wakes up at dawn to savour every moment of the chill that December sparingly offers her.
The writer is Deputy Resident Editor with this newspaper