Woven around
   Date :06-Nov-2019

 
By BIRAJ DIXIT :
 
 

 
 
“Winter is coming.” THE mystery that surrounds Game of Thrones ‘warnings’ may be acutely dense but so is the mystery surrounding arrival of our winter. It should have been here, but is taking its own sweet time. And those like me who have already taken their woolens out of the deep pockets of their closets are now wondering when they will get to wear those. There is a hell of a pulsating world in the deep pockets of the closets, I tell you. Open it and a new world within a rather old world beckons you. The new in the old, the lost in the found, the remembered in the forgotten and the joy in the sufferings – all come alive. Along comes hysteria, immense joy and a heart-warming feeling of having met someone from past. And if what you find are woolens and winter-wears, they are truly warming, quite literally. But then there is the question of the new in the old.
 
 
 
The new that says, “I remained young while you were growing.” This find that says, “Though you found me, I seem to be losing you,” as you try to still accommodate it around the growing you. As you pull-it-over remembering the wonderful feel of the warm wool, it sticks firmly refusing to budge. “You seem to have forgotten, I am a skin-fit,” it says. And you know why they say joys and sufferings go hand-in-hand as you struggle to free your hand of a stubborn sleeve. Ahead of winter, this has happened to me. I am living a paradox of my own self. I am happy and sad in equal measures. And I do not want to speak of measures! By the way, I am taking measures so that when I measure myself again in my favourite woolens, I do not feel the need for any more measures.
 
I only hope that my measured steps have a lasting effect that lasts all through the winter. Or am I pulling the wool over my own eyes? That’s early to say, let the winter come. Incidentally, were the phrase-makers inspired by my type of predicament when they came with the phrase pull the wool over one’s eyes to describe deceptions? Perhaps, they did. For, what can offer you a good slice of deception but woolens? In my younger days, when I was much slighter, a good woolen jacket saved me from being slighted. Now that I have - how should I put it - much more gravity, a beautiful shawl adds to my gravitas while a nice fitting turtle-neck makes me look less grave. Then, there are always those loose fits giving ‘fitting’ reply to your fits and fetish. Pure deception, these woolens! As I opened my closet the other day and pulled out these deceptions, I could not but deceive myself into trying them. It was a heart-break when they failed the ‘fit’ness test. These wools’ of my eyes! ‘Misfit???’ Then, me – the ever hopeful – told myself that my reaction was much cry and little wool.
 
I must get in shape. I took steps and stepped on the treadmill. But for fears unknown I am yet to step on the weighing machine. Numbers make me numb. It is my deeply-held belief that had it not been for accuracy of numbers, accumulation would not have been such a problem for humanity. But accumulation has this tendency not to spread evenly. Be it pounds or pounds, they tend to live tightly together. Some are rich with pounds, some rich in pounds.
 
Oh! but that is not what we should be pounding over. My present concerns are for the winter. Like the GOT Whitewalkers, I am waiting for winter so that I can arm myself in my hopefully-perfectly fit winter wears and walk on the streets feeling wonderfully warm and warmly wonderful. But the winter is yet to spring up. Perhaps it is not yet happy with my efforts at reducing gravity. It wants me to be slightly slighter so that I do not get slighted for being slightly overweight. A little more struggle remains so that I do not struggle to snuggle in my pretty woolens. Hasn’t John Dryden said… “The Fates but only spin the coarser clue; The finest of the wool is left for you”.