Dilli ki sardi...

A very “sidey” song kept doing the rounds in my head today…
“…something something….pyar tera aur dilli ki sardi….”

Dilli ki sardi. Am sure there are delhiites that are freezing this season, but one thing I miss most in the otherwise pleasant climes of Mumbai is the famed dilli ki sardi. The feeling of the soft chill enveloping you, when you are wrapped up comfortably all round and your nose braves the cold all alone…the feeling of breathing in chilled air and talking in warm clouds…the languor of early mornings when you are stuck to the soft hollow your curled body has created on the mattress…knowing full well that a one inch deviation in your toe position will bring you back in contact with the icy fingers of the snow queen…

It has to be winter outside if you really and truly want to experience how alu paranthas and butter taste…It may be my imagination, but I have always wondered why gulab jamuns taste sweeter and samosas crisper in the late winter sun..(this particular mystery of the universe was researched well and often in the college canteen, and pored over over endless cups of chai..)

And winter weddings….oh! the sensation of trying to cleverly disguise shivers as exuberance in talking and dancing, as you become more animated in your effort to ward off the cold in the open spaces where weddings mostly happen…because, of course, as a cousin of mine, a style diva in her own right once put it, “honey, you can either be warm and comfortable, or fashionable!! Which will it be,,” A sitter, eh! Ha Ha!

And lohri…Oh beautiful, wonderful, warm-with-the glow-of–the –firelight lohri….
How I have missed the lohri of my backyard these past some years…the biting cold, and the run up to the bonfire, the whole family doing parikrama of the fire, rewaris, moongphalis and yes, even popcorns galore…the inevitable menu of tadoori rotis and mah ki daal that my dadi made…and chacha regaling us with sundry stories late in the night till the embers glowed. Nothing, but nothing can beat the sensation of warming yourself against a fire…all the heaters, blowers and electric blankets of the world can go take a walk. Give me my kangadi any day!!

Bangalore mein ek baar ek lonely soi lohri manayee thi…just to keep the tradition alive, had collected some twigs and lit them up and offered popcorns..and thought of my daadi. I never miss her more than on lohri. And the Bangalore lohri was even more miserable as no one there knew what lohri meant…

Mumbai mein to aisa bravado kiya hi nahi. Collecting twigs has to be a joke in this concrete city..

Sundar mundriye ho,
Tera kaun vichara
Dulla bhati wala..
And so on will the urchins sing, asking for blessings (read money!) from every household…

Family bonfires are rare, so community bonfires will burn. Dhols will sound in all directions in Chandigarh..and delhi..and jammu..
And a tiny little bonfire will glow in a compound in Mumbai !!!

Lohri is on 13th Jan every year.

Romancing The Ordinary...

Many many years back, I was filled with a sense of wonder at how a girl I knew would always have fresh flowers in her room, how she would drink water from a lone crystal glass she had and how she would even eat the humble maggi or chips meal of our PG days in beautiful bright plastic bowls. How she would always perfume herself after she bathed, even if it was a just-before-bed shower and how beautiful she would look in her soft deep red satin nighty with delicate bows at the shoulders...
I would step out in the terrace with her to watch the stars in the dusk, and we would sit out in the balcony of our PG abode to watch the fireworks atop the ISCKON temple on janamashtmi day...
We woke up to the sounds of celine dion singing " I am alive", chatted about our lives and loves with Kishori Amonkar in the background, mused on life to the strains of "athanni si zindagi.."

And then she introduced me to a way of life called "Romancing the Ordinary"..a book by sarah ban breathnach...and said that the book reminded her of me..while all the time the book spoke of people like her, who find joy and serenity in everyday existence and fill people's lives with peace and joy and beauty..as she has done mine.

And then I realised that perhaps our dearest friends are really the mirrors of our soul and we appreciate the qualities in them that we hold dearest to our own hearts...

I passed on the book to some of my closest friends and know that I managed to impact the life of atleast one of them in the same way...because she SMSd me to tell me so :-)Right Em?

And yes, this fond remembrance goes out to En as she has just been blessed by a princess...who I am sure will grow up into a life of wonder and beauty and joy. God bless!