In Calcutta, much like most other parts of the country, except perhaps parts of North India, winters are fleeting; a delicate interlude of 40 or so days that bail us out of our insufferable heat and humidity. It is during these brief months, when the air turns crisp and the sun takes a gentler route across the sky, that our homes and wardrobes reveal a little seasonal magic. One of the season’s rituals begins with the airing out of jackets, sweaters and shawls - a simple act that never fails to surprise and delight.
It is astonishing what one discovers tucked away in these garments, remnants of life paused and forgotten. A crumpled currency note, perhaps a hundred-rupee note - modest, yet in its small way, it feels like a treasure found. A ticket to a museum in Europe, the stub carefully pressed between layers of fabric; a pass to the annual Dover Lane music festival; even a lonely kerchief, a pen with faded ink or a bus ticket long expired.
Each item carries a whisper of memory, a story both personal and universal and more often than not, elicits an unexpected laugh, a sudden warmth that no winter sun can rival. Jackets and sweaters are, of course, practical. They guard against a chill that is, by global standards, mild, but try suggesting that to a blue-blooded Bangali, who fears catching a cold more than she fears an Anaconda! Even her pets can be seen taking their evening walk with a woollen guard on.
But coming back to the jackets and sweaters, within whose pockets and folds are quietly archived snippets of life, like little time capsules. There is joy in unfolding a sleeve and finding a forgotten receipt from a long-ago café, a dried leaf pressed into a notebook or even a candy wrapper tucked into a corner, an accidental relic of a moment you once savoured. It is indeed wonderful how such tiny discoveries, mundane as they might seem, can suddenly conjure the aroma of hot chocolate or a particularly well-spent evening that was laced with the laughter of friends.
And then there are the shawls. Unlike sweaters and jackets, they rarely harbour objects hidden in pockets; they are themselves keepers of stories. Many are heirlooms, passed down from mothers to daughters, aunt to niece, carefully folded, preserved and occasionally aired with reverence. Their motifs, threads and patterns speak of distant looms and skilled hands; of a craft centuries in the making yet tenderly incorporated into daily life. The act of unfolding one, draping it over a shoulder, is to engage with time itself: with the care and patience of its creators and with the countless moments it has witnessed, wrapped around bodies, shoulders and memories alike.
And the delight is not just in discovering objects or admiring threads; it is in imagining their journeys. How did that concert ticket slip into the jacket’s pocket? Who else handled this shawl before it reached me? What stories do the faint creases and gentle frays tell? The layering is not just physical; it is emotional, temporal and almost metaphysical.
As the season unfolds and the city strolls out wrapped in its borrowed European winters, I am reminded that clothing, like music or a well-loved book, does more than serve a purpose. It holds within it a quiet, unspoken joy - a convergence of past and present, of warmth and wonder and of sense and sensibility. And for a woefully short spell of 40 days, as we bundle ourselves into these layers, we carry a little more than mere fabric: we carry the stories of ourselves, waiting to be rediscovered.