By Shabir Dar With day and night tempera tures in the Valley above normal people are missing the winter chill.
Experts believe it as a radical shift in the winter's character.
"Gone are those winter days when winters were blessed with huge snow and it for us make difficult to move outside.
So people, mostly elders and children kept sitting indoors," remembers Abdul Khaliq, an octogenarian from South Kashmir's Kulgam village.
In past Kashmir winter was characterized with harsh chill and heavy snow, which is hardly seen in today's winters.
To cope up with those winter days, valleyites adopted certain unusual and unique methods to escape the chill.
Khaliq remembers his childhood winter days, when he along with his other family members, used to sit in a common dingy room (kitchen) where dry wood used to burn in the mud oven through out the day.
Not only this, people used to fight with the biting chill in a traditional way-sipping hot noon chai (salt tea) prepared in samavour (traditional copper flask which is kept hot by burning coal), was enough that would keep Kashmiris warm during the chilly days.
Also, listening to interesting Kashmiri tales from family elders was the cherishing entertainment for people.
This was the norm in almost every household, however, more common in rural areas.
"I wish severe winter as it used to be decades back may come again.
We would enjoy the season in a different manner," said Shamallah Satar, an old lady in her mid sixties.
Gripped in unique nostalgic feelings, Shahmalla recapitulates the winter of her mid twenties, when every domestic business in her in-laws house would be done in one common room.
Men would weave the straw mats out of dried grass, which was the best thing to mat their rooms.
The villagers also used to sell these straw mats in market.
At that time women's best job for women was nothing other than spinning wheel, which was the only job they could do for passing their time in winters besides doing other domestic chores.
Women did not need to go out for bringing the wool for spinning purpose as every household enough stock of wool.
Sheep rearing used to be one of the best small business for every household in rural Kashmir.
Interestingly, all these activities would be carried out in a common room in every household.
Every family elder at that time might have had mimicked the art of story telling from their elders.
Sometimes the tales were directly read from the famous story books.
But for this purpose, only few persons in the vicinity of a village or mohallah, who could read and write, were able to provide this service to villagers.
So such people were in high demand in every village or in every house hold.
Special invitations were extended to these people by every house hold.
These experts would charge a simple fee for their services, i.e.
mere one kilogram of home prepared ghee, maize bread or a dozen eggs.
Children had their own way of enjoying the weather inside the four walls of the house.
Setting of hidden nets to capture birds, on the aisles and on the verandah, was the favourite pass time for children.
"I used to enjoy those moments of capturing birds in nets set by me and my cousin clandestinely to hoodwink the birds to fall prey," said Ghulam Rasool, who is now in his fifties.
For Shamallah, the most enjoyable moments for her in those winters were when she alongside her husband used to spin wheel, chatting and exchanging fun with him and other family members.
She had to prepare meals in the same room and then serve it to the members of her family.
"How enjoyable moments those-were! Sitting besides my husband, in an air tight room, with my children and other family members, chatting and joking all the time; is what I miss, now," said the old lady, who feels suffocated with winter, that has under-went change in the present times.
Moreover, now a days she remains confined to her room in isolation.
Now with the changing times, the dingy common rooms have been converted into modern kitchens, samavours have been replaced by new gadgetry flasks and the fashion of tale telling by elders is carried on now by television.
Now children are more interested to watch TV, youngsters remain busy on their mobile phones and elders are restricted to their secluded rooms.
And for people like Shahmala, this modern age is "suffocating".
In her childhood days, Shahmala says, the elders from other houses of neighborhood used to visit her house in the evening to discuss the day-to-day events with her parents and grandparents.
"Tell me, is that tradition alive at present," she questions.
"No doubt, there is radical shift in the nature of winter in Kashmir," said a historian, who wishes not be named.
He added that people in Kashmir, like other Indians, seem more impressed by the modern technology and western life style at the cost of their own culture and tradition.
Pop Love We called it the Connaught, a name that the ancients had given it, and it was a name that could not have been more inaccurate in its' comparison to the famed Delhi market..
The place brimmed with life in the evenings, except on the evenings before the tests, when you'd just see a few "psenti" final years.
It was the place to see and be seen.
It was a place where we'd treat our tired hostel palates to fried maggi and milkshakes.
The popcorn man was a relatively new addition to Connaught.
He'd been there one chilly evening in October with his little popcorn pushcart.
It had been a hit from the start, the aroma of the popping corn being irresistible, and the snack itself cheap enough to suit our student allowances.
Nobody minded that when you got down to the bottom of the little newspaper bag, you were likely to find yourself crunching sand with the corn.
She was buying popcorn when I first saw her, balancing her cycle and attempting to pay him at the same time, illuminated in the circle of light thrown by the street lamp.
Like an actress in a spotlight, she tossed back her hair with a reckless shake of her head, and then got on her cycle and rode away towards the hostels.
Her name was Aarti, I discovered, and she was a year junior, which probably explained why I never saw her anywhere else on campus.
Yet she was there every evening, buying popcorn.
I knew nothing about her, and yet seemed to know her like a comfortable acqua-intance.
I heard her laugh infectiously with her friends as they walked together sometimes.
Other times she was pensive, and lost in thought while conversation swirled around her.
To me she was the most attractive girl I'd ever seen, and irrational though it seemed, I wanted to get to know her better.
That of course, was easier said than done, me being mortified at the prospect of making a fool of myself in front of her giggling friends.
I convinced myself, that I'd get to it someday, when opportunity would present itself.
I had a plan, and I carefully rehearsed it, so as to make it sound natural when I did talk to her.
"Excuse me" I'd say, "Aren't you Priyas' wingie?".
I had no idea of where that would lead to, but it was a start.
That particular day, her friends had left ahead of her, but she was there at the popcorn cart, buying her usual rupees' worth.
As I walked towards her it seemed to me that my carefully crafted conversation opener was so flimsy, a child could see through it.
Panicking I thought of my other options - to ask her for change, to pretend I recognized her, to simply introduce myself.
It was too late though, and I could hear her walking away with her cycle.
I cursed myself for bungling my last chance.
The popcorn man probably understood the desperate look on my face, for he was smilingly pointing at something lying on the ground.
It was an ID card, hers.
Instinct took over as I picked the card up and broke into a run.
She had already rounded the corner out of Connaught, a good distance from where I was.
I reached the corner and stopped to catch my breath.
The large trash bin at the corner hadn't been emptied today.
Something on the surface caught my eye.
It was a bag of freshly popped corn.
