as winter sighs and leaves…

I am usually stranded in Bangalore during winters—the Bangalorean mild winter when the sun is sharp and bright, when there is always a mild stirring breeze, and the sky is on most days a pure blue. I notice things in winter: the going of leaves and flowers, the trace of the moon, birdsong, and the benign sun in the morning. I gaze at the traffic which in winter is not so annoying. I rather enjoy my confinement to my hometown.

Next week is the week of Shivarathri, during which festival of fasting and prayer, to quote tradition, winter sighs and leaves. At any rate the intimations of the changes that will come in the warm reason have begun to appear, like in the photograph in the papers of the line for tickets at the cricket stadium for the India-England match. A policeman has raised his staff the most he can, poised for a full charge upon the lower legs of men buying tickets. The policeman is in a fury, but the men in line are surprisingly grinning—a sign that though summer is coming, winter hasn't gone.

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This year’s February is more special than the ones before, for me, and for my family, because this month Yashas happily married Soumya, and my family is grown with this charming new member.