Winter Time In India -

But the heart of the winter, the event they both awaited with trembling excitement, was the annual Murgi Bazaar —the chicken market—held on the last Sunday of December. It wasn't a market for buying, but for watching. The local butcher, a giant of a man named Kaleem Bhai, would set up a makeshift arena in an empty lot. The event was a rooster fight—illegal, dangerous, and utterly mesmerizing to a boy’s eyes.

“The fog is thick as curd today,” his father would announce, his breath a small cloud. “The trains will be hours late.” He worked at the Charbagh railway station, and winter turned his orderly world into a chaotic symphony of delayed expresses and stranded passengers. Rohan loved hearing his father’s stories: of entire families huddled around small coal fires right on the platform, roasting peanuts; of the chai-wallahs doing brisk business, their kettles steaming like small locomotives; of the desperate, hopeful faces looking for a name on a mist-smeared board. winter time in india

They ate it in the courtyard, the sigri glowing a soft orange between them. The fog was a memory now, but the cold remained. Rohan looked at his father’s tired face, at Amma’s gnarled hands, and at the stars beginning to prick the clear, cold sky. But the heart of the winter, the event

Rohan considered this. “Then we’d never have to go to school. We’d just eat peanuts and look for shamians —those winter butterflies that come out of nowhere.” The event was a rooster fight—illegal, dangerous, and

“What if the fog never lifts?” Sameer asked one morning, his eyes wide. “What if the whole world just stays like this, soft and silent?”

His day began not with an alarm, but with the sharp, sweet smell of burning eucalyptus leaves from the sigri —the small charcoal brazier—that his grandmother, Amma, insisted on keeping in their courtyard. The winter sun, a weak, orange disc, struggled to pierce the fog, offering little warmth but a great deal of beauty. Rohan would reluctantly peel himself out of his layered blankets—a old razai so heavy it felt like a hug—and shuffle to the kitchen, where the sound of Amma grinding spices was the city’s true morning anthem.

This year, the fog was so thick that the crowd was a collection of disembodied voices. Men in long woolen coats and patched sweaters stood in a circle, their breath mixing with the smoke from cheap cigarettes. Kaleem Bhai, with a flourish, brought out the two combatants. One was a massive, dark-feathered brute with a neck like a wrestler. The other was a smaller, fiery-red bird with a surprising viciousness in its eye.