“I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood.”
- Bill Watterson

(Ok, so I don't particularly agree with the last half of that quote.....I have bad mood days in every season, and don't really need sub-zero temperatures to enhance them...but, I digress.

I feel the chilling zephyr blow through my hair and slowly numb the tip of my nose and my fingers as I drive down the lonely stretch of the DND Flyway (and I Wish You Were Here ;-) )

November has (finally) deigned to make its entry into the year, accompanied, in fine fashion, by a plummet in the mercury, (slightly) frigid winds, yellowed leaves underfoot, and that ever-present smell of wood smoke.

Nothing brings greater cheer to the recesses of my black heart...

Of course, there are other things that cheer me in equal measure....a glass of wine or a rum n coke in a quiet place after a hard day; a good, cholesterol-intensive meal; snuggling up on a couch with significant other (or rather, the fading memories thereof); an adrenalin rush-inducing concert.....but winter has its own special cheer...in an existential sort of way...brings about a certain amount of equanimity, I suppose.

Winter season in Delhi always brings to my mind certain passages from Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October” -

““Ah, Marko Aleksandrovich, in Gorkiy on a day like this, flowers bloom!”
“And what sort of flowers might those be, Comrade Political Officer?” Ramius surveyed the fjord through his binoculars. At noon the sun was barely over the southeast horizon, casting orange light and purple shadows along the rocky walls.

“Why, snow flowers, of course,” Putin said, laughing loudly. “On a day like this the faces of the children and the women glow pink, your breath trails behind you like a cloud, and the vodka tastes especially fine. Ah, to be in Gorkiy on a day like this!”

The bastard ought to work for Intourist, Ramius told himself, except that Gorkiy is a city closed to foreigners. He had been there twice. It had struck him as a typical Soviet city, full of ramshackle buildings, dirty streets, and ill-clad citizens. As it was in most Russian cities, winter was Gorkiy’s best season. The snow hid all the dirt.”

Tis true….my town, like any other metropolis, has its dirt, dilapidated buildings, beggars and more….but, try as they may, they cannot mar the glow this city takes on this time of the year……I digress yet again…

Some memories of winters past…..it’s electric, and it’s back :D










(All images © MisterCrowley through his legally constituted attorney)

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