Humour: A hazy shade of winter

Those fleeting Mumbai days of underused woollens and overindulgent meals

It’s that time of year when Mumbai tries on the winter, like a student on a budget trying on an oversized sweater at an export surplus sale. I’m not complaining. The temperature outside isn’t nearly as cold as the 2020-shaped block of ice in our hearts. But it’s cool enough to bring out the shawls and the blankets to gently bait the Delhi crew, who’ve relentlessly been posting wintry updates that range from picnics at Sunder Nursery to gajar ka halwa from legendary halwais.

There’s something about winter that makes one seek out the old-world charms of the southern end of Mumbai(Parth Garg)

Of the many revelations of the last year, the pointlessness of grand plans has been most stark

The days are shorter still when you’re in the zone that Mark Twain describes: “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” The cult of productivity and the busyness syndrome peaked along with Covid in 2020. As we face another uncertain year, I’m hoping we’ve learnt to adapt better to inclement conditions. For instance, if you gulped down Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives in one ill-fated night, you now have the time for introspection and atonement. I prescribe reruns of the India cricket team’s 36 all-out performance in Adelaide. It’s just the thing to shock the debutantes and cavaliers out of your system in one horrid purge.