PART ONE

Lahore and Lahories

Going Witless, Winterless

THE dictionary says that "witless (adj.)" is "literary and archaic" but adds that it means "foolish, unintelligent, lacking wit." So what, therefore, if it is "literary and archaic"? I am going to use it. Here goes, then.

          These have been the most witless days, and even more witless nights in this, the most winterless winter of my life. I don't remember when it last rained here. The trees and the shrubs are laden with dust and appear to be in some sort of mourning, and the grass in the lawn has died or is about to die.

          I haven't seen any flowers around. Predatory sparrows have eaten up all my dahlia saplings and neighbourhood goats have turned my hedgerows into skeletons of wood almost bereft of any leaves. The ivy on yonder wall has rusted-I can't find another word. The fireplace has not been needed at all. It would have been like turning on the heater in hell.

          The jacket has not been pressed into service and the cotton quilt, lehaf, has only just been taken out, not because it is really needed but out of sheer habit. You get too warm in it past midnight and have to air yourself and the glass of water I had the other morning was as refreshing as it would have been in midsummer.

          There has been no occasion for monkey nuts or peanuts or other dry fruit. I have seen plenty of fresh fruit in the city markets and the oranges look gorgeous-from a distance at least. I haven't seen a crueller winter sun. And I have sweated after a fifteen-minute walk under it at midday, not that it is any the milder at ten in the morning.

          The nights have been cool, rather than cold and the day temperatures have been consistently higher than normal. The mercury has yet to fall below 21 degrees centigrade during the day and below four degrees during the night.

          I have lived through sub-zero nights, late in December and early in January, and I have seen the lawn covered with frost, as thick as if it had snowed overnight. I have seen early night mist turn into impenetrable fog, which wouldn't lift until midday, and I have seen it rain for days on end.

          I live in a British Indian house, old enough to have fireplaces in every room that proves that when it was built 57 years ago, Lahore was cold enough during the winters for architects to provide for a heating system. I am an environmentalist and I know that we shouldn't be cutting down trees but since I have grown and preserved more trees than I have put in the grate, permit me to say that a log fire is the most romantic form of heating I have known. I hate the electric and gas heaters, which, by the way, are no less dangerous, if not more, than the log fire. The only thing against the log fire is that we are not growing enough trees when we have the land and the resources to do so.

          Anyhow, my log fires were the envy of my friends and they would flock to my place and we would get the fire going and the flames would bring great good cheer and our evenings would last well past midnight till such time as we ran out of our logs and coal and our bon mots . Every evening would be an occasion.

          In the Lahore of my childhood, you needed a jersey, a jacket, a chesterfield (chester for short), a woollen scarf and socks and gloves if you wanted to go out early in the morning or late at night. You wanted the sun on your back all day. The coat, half or full, was the in thing even for girls and Suba Khan's was the place where they went on The Mall. The tailors are still there but the coats are out.

          Mercifully, there was no television in those days and, therefore, families were families and fathers and mothers, sons, and daughters really lived together and eating out was unheard of. Every household had seamstress of its own, usually a spinster aunt. In my case, it was Kuko Khala. She was the queen of the Singer sewing machine and was the darling of all children in the family. In fact, sewing was not her only forte. She could cut and design for infants and children and grown ups. She could weave wondrous motifs and make ordinary muslin or cotton wear fit enough for a queen.

          Kuko Khala had no peer in crochet work and come winter and she was the knitter-in-chief for the entire family. Not only that. She loved to cook now and again and her koftas  were the rage of the neighbourhood. Every winter, she would make gajrela , which would last for days, and most of it was eaten by yours truly.

          What did the family do at night? We would gather together in a closet for warmth bring in three or four cotton quilts and put a glowing rattan covered round earthen brazier in the middle and sat around it like monkeys and eat tons of peanuts till midnight. In the morning (and also after dinner), there would be cups and cups of salted Sabz Chai with as much cream as you could steal from the larder behind grandma's back.

          Dining rooms there were but they were used only during the summer. Winter breakfast, lunch, and dinner would always be in the kitchen and we would fight with each other for the seats closest to the oven. We had a stern father (all fathers were stern in those days) who was a benign dictator. His presence meant law and order but during the winter lunch hour, even he would relax and laugh at us or with us and take us out in the sun with basketfuls of oranges and bananas and apples to be followed by the inevitable monkey or peanuts.

          Winter, in short was, one long, five-month festival of fun and frolic and food. I say five months because in the fifties and the sixties, even autumn could be quite chilly and we had orders from school to change into light woollies on October 15 sharp. Not only autumn, even in spring you had to have your jerseys on.

          I am not talking of 1894. It used to be like this until 1964, the Year of Television. We are the same family today but television has replaced small talk. We do not communicate with each other and have become witless misanthropes.

Friday, January7, 1994