I know it’s winter in Dhaka because I find myself carefully turning the water knobs of the shower with the dexterity of a notorious international master jewel thief cracking a dual dial combination safe. With willful slowness, with precision and the utmost concentration, holding my breath: A few clicks to the right, a couple to the left.
To get it wrong is to either have scalding hot water flay my back like some torture scene from Game of Thrones, or to be instantly frozen by a freeze ray, with your tongue being your only remaining moving part, behind gritted teeth and a rictus smile, emitting expletives, whilst moving with the haste of a glacier from the last Ice Age, lest your now-crystalline family jewels shatter like the baddie from Terminator 2 frozen by liquid nitrogen.
Like the jewel thief, I too endeavour to make a clean getaway.
I know it’s winter in my village because of the morning stillness around 6:30am. Normally, at this time, any other season, one is treated to a hive of activity, hustle and bustle, with ploughs, threshers, nets, baskets, empty food plates for farm hands being carried back and forth. Yet, with the cold, the Sylhetis hibernate a tad longer.
The fog is absolute, thick, and otherworldly. Ma Bangla hides her curves and glistening lush beauty under a gauzy veil of diaphanous white. What a minx, what a tease. The quiet -- no man-made nor natural sounds like bird calls -- make it eerier.
At times it billows and you catch a glimpse of landmarks where they should be, reassurance that indeed there hasn’t been a freak manifestation of physics opening a portal into another world or dimension. Other times you can see only as far as the tip of your outstretched fingers. The varying of visibility sometimes suggests a sentience, but whether wraith or seraphim depends on your mood.
As it lightens, you can make out fine water droplets suspended and floating with the slow motion of those black dots that appear in your normal vision. The sun slowly makes its way up, albino white and enfeebled. It offers a brightness but you can stare directly at it with comfort.
It looks like a slice of boiled egg. Or a glammed up version of the moon. A gymmed up, worked out version, perfectly round and smooth. Perhaps a moon that used loads of acne medication and then applied a thick foundation to achieve a geisha perfection and glow. After all, winter is wedding season in Bangladesh.
I know it’s winter in Dhaka and in my village, because swimming, whether in a pool or a pond for the first couple of laps is slightly “brr” and my lap-times improve noticeably.
The colder water causes certain body parts to protrude, thus cutting through the water, and other parts diminish, causing less drag and resistance. Furthermore, I end up going through moisturiser faster than a metrosexual at Ibiza.
I know it’s winter in Bangladesh when my bodna’s water temperature is more suited to a champion high-diving penguin’s pool. Like the penguin, you score and win based on agility, form and minimal splashing.
