COLD AND WINTER ARE SYNONYMOUS

We in North India are in the grip of severe cold. January is the worst month and feels the longest. It meanders. Fogs and mists have become our uninvited friends. They keep clinging to us. We wish them good-bye all the time and eagerly wait for their departure. Sun has acquired the propensity of being elusive. Some days it does not show at all. Those days are the gloomiest. Sometimes all at once, the sun wriggles out of the smog by late morning or by afternoon. A sigh of relief and joy takes over. I dash outside with something to read while basking in the glory of the golden sunshine. I sit at a point where there is no wind and let the sunshine penetrate into my body unhindered. How happy you feel when for a few hours at least you take off your layers of clothes. You bare part of your body to sun's invigorating rays. Such days are heavenly.

Otherwise, on sunless days you keep snuggling in your quilt the whole day. You get up only for cooking, eating or for some unputdownable chores. If you are at the computer as I‘m now you need a room heater near your legs to prevent them from getting stony cold.

For the  poor and daily wage earners winter is tough and brings misery. Authorities in all states of India keep building night shelters for the homeless and the deprived.

Yet winter has its plus points. It is great in many ways. For one there is so much variety in fresh vegetables available in stores. Street vendors ply their carts loaded with veggies and make rounds of the area all the time.

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Winter is the time to savor goodies and special dishes, which are only prepared in cold months. Breakfasts are incomplete without radish stuffed paranthas. Sweet carrot dish cooked in cream is always mouthwatering. Bars of sesame seeds and groundnuts prepared with jaggery are everyone’s favorite snacks. Freshly roasted whole groundnuts are available in plenty. Vendors on the roadsides pop corns in your presence making you enjoy the warm crunchiness. Moreover, delicious sweets, in eye-catching arrangements, adorn the counters of sweet shops. Yet who can dare ignore the special winter dish of sag eaten with makki di roti and dollops of fresh butter? Nothing can beat it in nutrition as well as taste.

Such are the joys of winter that small discomforts don’t matter. 

Linking to:
Our World
ABC Wednesday    C is for Cold
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Seasons
Wednesday around the world
Foto Friends
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 Friends,welcome here as always!

CRITTERS IN WINTER CHILL

On a misty, cloudy, dreary and cold morning, our bird friends are also not in their usual elements. They turn their feathers into a fluffy position to keep warm  and have to come out to peck grub or grain to fill their tiny bellies. Poor souls can't boast of freezers or fridges to store food for the proverbial rainy day. Nor can they go to high class, internally heated stores for their daily groceries. Unlike us, they take their picks soil fresh. The birdie below, I sighted through the window pane ensconced on the iron contraption sitting idly, so that I'd picture it.

A little later (Below) I captured this one busy locating some thing on the ground, perched on the iron railing across our boundary wall.

Linked to       SATURDAY CRITTERS               CAMERA CRITTERS









Friends,welcome here as always!

RAIN SOAKED SKY WATCH

 SKY WATCH FRIDAY

It's been drizzling since morning and the atmosphere is thinly hazy. The light grey sky is concealing the watery reservoir under its wraps, to send it to us  in small measures. It was windy in the morning. At the moment it is still, though, uncomfortably cold outside. The environment appears to be saturated with moisture. I felt that way when i went out adventurously and captured the sky scape in mild rain spell, about an hour ago (at four thirty or so). Hope you like it.

The room heater keeps me warm and  enables me to function normally.

Friends, welcome here as always!