Winter Haiku

December sky music:
A Capella Betelgeuse
Sirius up next

Poppycock!

Winter. I know exactly what I want from winter in the Dooars. It should be pleasantly cool, with temperatures not lower than 11 degrees C, and no higher than 22 C. It should be just cold enough to justify the lighting of a fire in the place.

The joy of airing and wearing sweaters, snuggling into quilts and being able to knit without feeling suffocated by the warmth of wool.

Clear blue skies, sunlight to sit out in, no dust and no humidity.
Indolence.
Bonfires.
Picnics.
Flowers.
Oranges.
Peanuts.
Christmas cake.
Masala chai.

My mother has always said that the cold weather in Delhi is wonderful until Christmas, after which what she calls the 'dirty winter' begins. I can't think of a better description of those murky skies or those foggy days and nights with miserably low temperatures.

The Dooars is not as cold as Delhi, but here too, blue skies and sunny days come to an end by the beginning of January. In the morning, the fog gives way to a dust and cloud haze. Everyone seems to fall ill. We long for warmth, for an end to the misery of cold days and nights.

February usually comes with drought, chills, more dust, and an increasing difference in day/night temperatures which adds to the woes of those suffering from coughs and colds.

It's been different this year. In most parts of India, winter began early and seems to be in no hurry to leave.

For the last two days, we've had a replay of the early cold weather. The sky is blue, the sunshine is warm enough for me to lie about in chairs and drowse, and occasional chilly breezes bring the comforting thought that the weather won't hot up and spoil it all too soon.

My cold weather garden has a very few blooms. We moved into this bungalow at a time when it was too late for me to plan or plant the garden. The previous occupant had had no time either, being caught up with packing for retirement.

So I have what the mali (gardener) could manage with his own resources. I never grew poppies after our chhota bungalow days, becoming very picky as I gained seniority - not necessarily wisdom - as a tea memsaab. Poppies were things I looked down upon. They have this tendency to blaze for a day or two in glory before fluttering away their all in a mess on the ground. It's tempting to think of them as wastrels. They are completely out of place among superior species that hold their heads up as the well cultivated should.

Well they hold their own here - however fleetingly - and they have silenced me. I'd forgotten their depth of colour and the richness of texture of each petal. The 'mess' of fallen petals makes the ground come alive with colour. I'm willing to eat my words – and the poppies too - if it will prolong the heady daze of these extended cold weather days.








The sky at noon - from under a favourite tree

Winter's Gold

January is drawing to a close, and we are in a hurry to enjoy what is left of the winter season. When the morning's fog clears, the marigolds in the garden look as if you could drink the sunshine out of them. There are fresh oranges to juice up, and though they get more expensive every year, they taste great.


Home-made Marmalade - No sitting in the sun and making this!

Sweet and golden are the days spent idling in the winter sun. The festival of sun-worship, Sankranti/Pongal, just went past. The Bengali month of Poush finished in mid-January. It is a special month for foodies : a host of traditional sweets are prepared with 'khejur gur', the jaggery made from date palm syrup. Jaggery is a wonderful thing to eat in winter, and far more healthy than refined white sugar. Date palm jaggery has a mature mellowness and booziness which is quite missing in sugar cane jaggery. It is sold in rounds like this one, below.


Khejur gur and Sandesh
When the month of Poush began in mid-December, I started checking with our general store owner in town whether his stock of Khejur gur had arrived yet. He said, 'Abhi kahaan itna thhanda hua hai? Thhanda hone se aayega' (Is it cold these days? the gur will only be ready when it is really cold.) The 'gur' needs sunshine as well as cold to reach the right levels of sweetness.

Golden brown Khejur gur Roshogollah puts regular white Roshogolla in the shade. Khejur gur roshogollah, sandesh, paayesh and kalakand are sold in shops. The best sweets, though, are the ones made at home. Bengali women who are experts in the kitchen make amazing sweets from khejur gur. When my mother is here, she too makes her special 'Thenga Paal Payasam' with Khejur gur. I find myself closing my eyes just thinking about that Payasam.


The 'Paayesh' in this picture was painstakingly prepared by Mrs. Rama Mitra-Majumdar in Moraghat and sent to all the bungalows a couple of days ago. The base is paayesh, thickened milk sweetened with Khejur gur, and the rice flour peetha/dumplings are filled with coconut and jaggery paste. Simply heavenly.

26 January is a favourite date for picnics. We had our garden families' picnic at the Pump House in the "NG" Division, on 25th January. The smiling faces say it all.

Dahlia Daze

Dahlias are the chief attraction in gardens during the cold weather across the plains of North India. Most people in the Dooars manage to grow a few every year, regardless of where they live: town, tea garden or busti. They have the luxury of space, which city dwellers lack.



Dahlias are easy to grow, but anyone wanting to grow blooms of good size and shape has to make a special effort. Dahlias are propagated from cuttings taken from tubers, or bulbs. This has to be done in the first week of September. The little seedling plants are carefully nurtured and protected from rain for about six weeks until they're ready to be transplanted into well manured and aerated soil. Here we have to be extra vigilant at the time, because of freak storms that strike in late October and early November.



Once they're in their beds, the plants have to be fed carefully. Sunlight and water are the chief 'food' of the dahlia plant, and regular manuring is required. The flowering season begins in December and carries on through March. Dahlia plants could grow up to six to eight feet in height.



The largest of blooms could grow up to a foot in width, while the smallest could measure just two inches across. There are thirty six species of Dahlia, and the variety seems endless.



The one that has flourished in my garden this year is the miniature hybrid variety. These plants are not grown from cuttings, but from seeds. The seeds were sent to me by my brother Raja, from Delhi.



The tallest plant is no more than a foot and a half in height and the blooms vary in size from two and a half to three and a half inches across.
Strictly speaking, neither plants nor blooms are 'miniatures'.
There are many colours in the lot and some flowers are bi-coloured too. Some have a single layer of petals while others have multiple layers, almost looking like lotuses.



What sets them apart from everything else in the garden is the perfection of each flower. Here are some pictures of this year's beauties. Sitting among his flowers is the proud 'Dahlia artist', Mithu Oraon.




(See http://seventhchords.blogspot.com/2007/09/same-garden-some-other-time.html)