Of twilit nights

During winters, if there was something that didn’t change, it would be the load shedding schedule. For us, in the N. Nazimabad area, this was one of those constants that never changed, partially due to the fact that we had an entire illegal city populated on Pahar Ganj right in our back yard.

The only thing one could do about the load shedding was to just take it in its stride. And that’s what we used to do it as well. It would never be easy; especially the one and a half hour session that took place around 8:00 PM.

After all, that would be the time when we’d finally all start winding down, watching TV, playing a video game, reading a book etc. And even though we did have a UPS, it was always left for emergency usage (bathroom lighting, electrical mats to keep the mosquitos at bay etc.) So turning on the TV or video games would be a complete no-no.

Instead, what we would do is spend the time on the roof of our house.  There was huge room built on the roof. It was more like a hall that spanned half the entire roof area. Like any construction allowed on the roof, it was a bulky cement structure with an asbestos roof (you cannot have pakki construction done on any roof, well, legally anyways…)

So, we’d all climb upstairs, and my dad would fire up this small ‘home made’ grill (angeethi) that he had so proudly made to order (courtesy of the pathani banaras workshops right behind pahar ganj) and we’d be roasting either desi sausages (they’re so tough, I swear the skin was made of some modified form of plastic. This was before KnN came to the market with their awesome Cheese and Herb ones…) while warming ourselves over the kindle. We’d all sit around it in a loose circle, on the multi coloured chatai wrapped in shawls,blankest and razais . There were no chairs kept upstairs, that would have made it look too much like another room of the house. Instead, there was this piece of carpet laid on the bare floor, with lots of big and small pillows and gao-takyas of all possible colours thrown around, kind of like a poor man’s farshi baithak. The cat would be constantly trying to search for some warm corner in our laps, sometimes burrowing itself deep in the blankets.

It would no doubt be a very peaceful experience. The entire pahar would be visible, and in the darkness of the night, you could very clearly see where the poor people had lit fires to warm themselves. Little flickering lights would dot the mountain, and the aroma of burning wood would be so heavy, I swear I can still sometimes smell it in my dreams.