I know why bears hibernate

I know why bears hibernate. I really do. 

But let me begin at the beginning.

Early last week, one crisp January morning, I found myself sitting on a bathroom stool, fully clothed watching a bucket full of steaming water, feeling very much like I was ten years old. The-ten-year old who sat in the bathroom, eyeing the bucket full of steaming water, wondering whether she dared to have that bath or should she simply make splashing sounds for the benefit of a random parent, who, knowing her only too well, might be listening. 

A tiny lie, and life was sorted. After all what kind of masochist bathed every day in the cold?

While it’s one thing to escape parents, it’s a whole different thing to escape your own mind, your conscience, which has, over the past decades, grown to monster proportions and is in the habit of torturing me more efficiently than my parents ever did. So, I steeled myself, dunked a few mugs of water, bathed and escaped. Barely.

I’d almost forgotten what winter meant.

Back home in Pune, winter means pyjamas instead of shorts. Maybe a full sleeved T-shirt, a light jacket, a comforter and the possibility of sleeping without the fan. Most nights, though, we leave it on anyway, accustomed to its gentle white noise.

Winter in Lucknow spells a whole different way. It means layers. Woollen inners, shirts, jackets, shawls and caps. It means shut doors and windows with heaters/blowers casting their yellow glow and no fans. Most definitely no fans.

It’s strange how one forgets.

Ever since I left Lucknow, I’ve come back every year, at least once, but always in summer. I know the stinging heat. I’m familiar with the still, oppressive nights, when not a single leaf stirs, when sweat runs silently down your back, when staying away from the AC is impossible even at dawn.

But the cold? That always catches me by surprise.

My sister warned me. 

‘Get your woollens,’ she said. ‘Get that jacket, keep a shawl handy.’ 

She knows me. She knows how I feel the cold more than most. She knows about my epic head colds.

I listened. I really did. I packed everything she asked. 

She looked at my woollens, snorted in contempt, dismissed them as ‘flimsy’ and made me put them all away. 

Only now I am sort of getting accustomed to it all. 

Mercifully it’s already February and it only gets better. Hopefully. I don’t have to deal with the dreaded, ‘Arey this is nothing — just you wait!’

Long ago, my father had some friends over from Chennai for a Science Congress he was organising. Despite repeated warnings about the winter, they had turned up in full-sleeved shirts and sleeveless sweaters. How we laughed at them!

But now, I am those friends! 

And it’s not funny.

If you’re from the colder regions and are a true friend you will not find it funny either. That said, I reserve the right to continue to laugh at Bombay people who find Pune too cold. Ha ha!

Oh and about the bears, I looked this up.

Bears hibernate in winter primarily to survive food scarcity and cold temperatures by entering a state of reduced metabolism called torpor. Instead of true hibernation, they live off fat reserves stored during autumn, reducing their heart rate to ~8 beats per minute and not eating, drinking, or excreting for months.

Living off fat reserves might finally solve a few of my problems. Imagine emerging from a cave in spring, slim, trim and quite happy!

Sounds excellent.

I’ll have some of the bear torpor, please. 

Thank you.