Agrarian societies are inseparably linked with nature, with the phenomenon of weather in particular, which plays a make or break role in the production process dependent on weather patterns and seasonal changes.

The successful business of sowing, raising and harvesting crops has much to do with minute calculations of cyclical changes in seasons. In our agricultural life seasons are reduced into months and months into days in order to know the best time to sow a particular crop for healthy yield. A miscalculation can be disastrous in the sense that it would result in crop failure impacting growers’ fragile economic health. Subsequent pecuniary losses will be unbearable for the eternally cash strapped traditional farmers for whom the vitally needed healthy cash flow is generated by the sale of harvested crops.

Since weather is so crucial to agrarian existence we have loads of lore on it and about it accumulated over millennia. The farming is not something recent in Punjab as it has been here since Harappa times. Winter or whatever remains of it is now on its way to us. Let’s look briefly at dos and don’ts and celebratory warnings regarding winter. Winter [Siyal in Punjabi] in our region can be comfortable for human body but not very conducive for crops, vegetables and fruit trees. So it’s accorded cautious welcome.

But first about the joy it brings! Baba Farid, the pioneer of Punjab’s contemporary literary tradition and grand saint, very succinctly paints seasons’ landscape with inimitable beauty. “In [the month of] Katak the migratory cranes, in [the month of] Chet the fire [riot of colours], in [the month of] Sawan the lightning / in winter one’s arms around the beloved’s neck are a sight worth seeing ( Katak kunjaan, Chet daunh, Sawan bijlian /siylay sohndian Pirr gul baahiryaan) ”, he says.

Waris Shah in his legend of Heer refers to the months /seasons in the specific context of agricultural activities and production process. “Rain in [the month of] Jayth is bad, so is the wind in the cold season, and dust storms are forbidden in the months of Katak and Mangh (Jayth meenh te siyal nu waa mandi, Katak Maangh vich manaa anehriyan ne)”, announces the bard. Jayth [mid May to mid-June] is the month when traditionally wheat crop, cut and piled, is still being thrashed in the fields and the rain if it comes can destroy the harvest. In winter the wind can add to the chill and cause the plants to shrivel. Dust storms in Katak and Mangh [mid-October to mid- November and mid-January to mid-February] can play havoc with the crops.

Evoking the mood that we see in the couplet of Baba Farid, Waris Shah’s Heer, the female protagonist, cries: “in [the month of] Poh [mid-December to mid-January] my body shivers, alone I sleep in my bed (Poh maah vich kunbdi jaan meri, mein ikallri sej te sauwani haan)”.

Traditionally with the onset of winter one could see a flurry of diverse activities meant to deal with the biting cold. Paenja, the cotton carder, was a great sight working with his wire instrument. The device would soften and loosen the fibre into fluff [roon] with its vibrating string. Monotonous notes of the string would produce pleasant noise mesmerising the children. Cotton thus carded was used for getting quilts and pillows ready specially designed to cope with winter. Another scene in almost every house was women knitting beautiful woolen sweaters, jerseys, caps and gloves for their men and children. It showed not only the knitting skills but also cultural and aesthetic taste of our women. Yet another activity undertaken by women was to prepare fantastic dry sweets rich in calories which would be a nourishing source of instant energy required to fight the cold. The main ingredients of such sweets were butter, butter oil, flour, starch, brown sugar, jaggery, seeds, nuts and herbs. Consumption of such rich stuff would keep the people in good physical shape in the cold season when calories burnt fast.

Men’s important task in the country side in view of approaching winter was to keep the house well-stocked with firewood needed for the kitchen. Logs for the open hearth were also to be ensured as cheerful log fire was not to be missed in the frosty misty season. Outside the house men would be busy storing dry fodder for the livestock as green fodder was scarce in winter. Old cattle-sheds would be reinforced or new ones built to protect the herds from the cold.

But all that is traditional has already disappeared or is in a process of fast fade-out. What we have now is more or less a semblance of traditional winter. And emergence of a new hazy landscape defined by polluted sky with low hanging smog due to low temperature is a poor replacement. That’s the flip side of modern life’s fairy tale. In addition dense population ideally suited for creating conditions to make life a worthless commodity in a fetishistic society gets denser by the day. There are no sages with required persuasive power to stop us from making “children out of our lusts”. There are no leaders at the helm insightful enough among the powerful nations to take the responsibility for what their societies have done to climate. Course correction is a far cry from waywardness that has engulfed the world.

World leaders can be declared not guilty of crimes against nature only on the ground of diminished responsibility. So should we be content with the winter or what remains of it, an appendage of summer? For how long we can afford to wait for our tanked sages to acknowledge that modern way of life, population explosion and climate change have deep linkages? No remedial measures can work unless everything about holistic picture is taken into consideration. It’s not merely a question of saving winter from being destroyed. We will have to save everything if we want to save anything at all in a world driven and sustained by interconnections. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2019