Day before yesterday when there was severe cold, I very well remember that it was nine o’clock of the night because I heard from my own ears that the watchman of the Police station had struck nine on the bell. I then took out my face from the quilt and saw the watch. After this, I dipped into my quilt and engaged myself for an hour thinking about coldness and apathy. After that the watchman started striking the clock bell. I could hear clearly three strokes but for the fourth stroke the sound benumbed as if someone had strangled his throat. I then started to wait for the remaining strokes of the clock bell, but the sound was not to come, so it didn’t come. I started blinking my eyelids in the quiet and started wondering what is the matter? An hour before it stroke nine hours. How is it that now it struck four. It means that I continued thinking on current affairs for complete six hours. My conditions have not yet been deteriorated to such an extent that I should continue thinking for six hours. I removed the quilt from my face and saw the watch. It was showing ten o’clock. I kept myself awake waiting for the stroke of eleven o’clock. When it was eleven o’clock, the watchman again started striking the clock bell. This time he struck only three. I continued thinking the whole night about the improper act of the watchman. Next day, early in the morning, I complained to the watchman that when the time was ten o’clock, how is that you struck four strokes and when it was eleven o’clock, you struck only three strokes. On hearing this, the watchman told me grinding his teeth. “Sir! It is a matter of time. Hearing the strokes of the clock covering the face in the quilt is a different thing and to strike the bell of the clock in the severe cold at 10 o’clock in the night is another thing. Tonight, in the severe cold you strike only one stroke of the bell of the clock, I am ready to strike not ten but fifteen strokes.” After listening to eh reply of the watchman it seemed as if there was snow fall on me. My ears froze and after that I never tried to think about the issue of number of hours in winter season. However, I have discovered a scale to measure the degree of heat by counting the number of clock hour strokes. On a certain day, if the watchman strikes two, it means that cold is very severe today. On another day, if no stroke is struck, my teeth start moving up and down automatically.
According to the watchman, if he strikes four strokes at ten o’clock in the night, it is not a mistake because according to the theory of time pronounced by Einstein, during winter season, the scale of time changes. If he strikes four at ten o’clock in the night, it means that the cold at the time is exactly equal to the cold which in principle, should have been at four o’clock in the morning. It is evident that there is nothing wrong in it. The logic of winter season is difficult. I am habituated to get up at seven o’clock in the morning during winter season but in winter season it is seven o’clock for me when it is actually nine o’clock. I have seen such persons whose seven o’clock is at 12 noon and at seven o’clock in the evening their midnight starts.
Believe me! When there is winter season, everything in life gets shrunk because of cold. Even in literature, there occurs stagnation. It a matter of few days, when some poets had organized a poets’ gathering (Mushaira) in the severe cold season. I had also attended this poets gathering as an audience. When the announcer desired the president of the Mushaira to come on to the dais, I removed my muffler a little bit from my ears and saw that the presidency of the Mushaira adorned the throne pressing his hands in his armpits trembling. It looked as if the presidency has frozen. I had not seen the presidency of this kind which was wrapped in clothes from all the four sides. When the announcer of the Mushaira called the name of a poet, the poet started shivering like the cane stick of Majnoon. He looked at the president of the Mushaira and sought his permission saying “Am I allowed”? The president with shivering teeth permitted the poet to recite his poem. With great difficulty, the poet had recited the fist couplet of this poem, which mostly included the sound of shivering of his teeth more and the melody of his poem very little.
When he recited the second couplet, it was revealed that both the lines of the couplet have lost their metrical rhyme. The meter of the first couplet was longer but the meter of the second couplet was of a shorter length.
In winter season, the couplet of the larger meter shrinks and becomes the couplet of the shorter meter. It is not the law of poetry but it is the law of Nature. But none from the audience did notice the asymmetry of the couplet because the ears of all of them were covered with mufflers and it was almost impossible for any couplet to enter the ears of the audience piercing their thick mufflers. A good couplet can descend on to the heart very easily but it is very difficult for it to descend into the ears of someone during the winter season. Whenever any poet, used to look at the president of Mushaira and said, “Sir I invite you attention,” I then could not see any movement in the heap of presidency. It had turned into a lifeless bundle. Mushaira continued in the same way. Every poet was anxious of reciting the concluding couplet of the poem. The poets who were infamous for reciting two or three poems got rid of by reciting only the concluding couplet. When I started to return from the Mushaira, I saw that all the poets had gone after reciting their poems and the audience, after listening to them and the presidency is sleeping on the throne of presidency. In such a severe cold, I didn’t venture the impoliteness of waking up the presidency and came back home.
Whatever it may be, the winter season transforms the man into a very cultured and sophisticated person. Everyone seemed to be standing with his hands pressed into his armpits as if the modesty ended on him. The hands of the man are pressed in his armpits as if they have been fastened on to them. I happened to board a bus the other day. As per our habit, I wanted to purchase the bus ticket. In this matter my intention was clean but what to do, my hands were pressed in the armpits. I thought that when the conductor comes and demands money, I will then free my hands. When I cast my looks on the conductor, I saw that he is also sitting on his seat with his hands pressed in his armpits. At any cost, he is not prepared to remove his hands from his armpits for the sake of issuing tickets. Evidently, such a situation was advantageous to us. I cast my eyes on the other passengers. Their hands were pressed in their armpits. I sighed for a moment with contentment. Meanwhile, when I saw the bus driver, my blood was about to be frozen because the bus driver was also sitting with both his hands folded and the bus was plying on the road at a speed of at least sixty miles per hour. Being terror stricken, my hands automatically came out of the armpits because I was not prepared to travel in such a bus without ticket whose driver was driving the bus with folded hands.
I also saw a scene on the road that a man wanted to give some money to a beggar as alms but he was not prepared to take out his hand from the pockets of his coat. He is looking at the beggar wistfully and he is also not willing to stretch his hands in front of him. He is looking at him with helpless looks as if he is saying, “My father! If you are alive till the summer season, I will then take alms at that time but don’t torment me now by giving alms.”
Don’t treat it as a joke that whenever I meet a friend of mine in the winter season, I don’t shake hand with him. I prevaricate him by shaking my head only. At last, the salutation also gets frozen in winter season. During winter season, even an illiterate and an uncouth person also becomes a philosopher. He thinks hours together before working on any issue. Take my example. I wake up in the bed at seven o’clock in the morning but to get out of quilt, I think continuously for two hours. And then I come out of the quilt like a chick coming out of an egg. Not only this, when I enter the bathroom I think for an hour on the issue of when to pour the first drop of water on my body and at last when the first drop of water falls on my body, then I get perplexed at my cries. Tell me, aren’t these activities the proofs of my becoming a philosopher. I say that the winter season is very philosophical. In this season, man thinks more and works less. This is the reason that many philosophers were born in cold countries only.
I can say from my personal experience that during the initial days of the months, there is less cold but when the last dates arrive and there comes a situation when the stage is reached to borrow money, then I feel severe cold. I have evolved a scale to measure that difference between the rich and the poor. If a person is shivering from cold, it means that his pocket is empty and that dew drops are falling on his hopes. When there is no effect of cold on a person, take it for granted that his pocket is hot (full) and his bank balance also exists. A person asked an Arabian nomad, “In your country, how do people spend the season of winter?’ the nomad replied “rich people spend winter by covering their bodies with a blanket and the poor persons by ringing their teeth.” I am included in the group of people who spend the winter season by ringing the teeth. There was a time when I had teeth in my mouth which used to ring in winter season but I don’t have the teeth and hence I don’t want to spoil my artificial teeth by ringing them. I, therefore, keep quiet by grinding the teeth.
When the fervour of cold starts, man speaks in the language of telegram which means that he talks briefly and in few sentences, he doesn’t even use infinitive either. In many cases, he doesn’t remember what he is talking. For example, a friend of mine giving his opinion about the severity of winter season had said that “today the cold is very severe. I didn’t feel so much fervour so far.” By saying this, he pressed his hands in his armpits and wrapped himself in muffler and I started shivering with the fervour of coldness like a cane stick of Majnoon.
By Mujtaba Hussain
Courtesy: Mera Column (The Siasat Daily)