I can't stand the cold. In fact, I can't even stand; because when I do, I start shivering all over. My hands hurt from the biting cold. I can't feel my feet. IT'S WAY TOO COLD. I want to hibernate. Wake me up when February ends.
For all those folks who don't see winter in North India the way I do--, I'm still adjusting. Six years in Hyderabad and I never had to wear more than two layers of clothing in winters. When we shifted to Faridabad, all our budget was crossed by winter shopping alone. A bunch of thick blankets, racks of jackets for the entire family; do you even know how exhausting it is to wear SO MANY CLOTHES to school?! My waistline increases by 3 inches on either side and I end up looking like Billie Eilish (I won't deny I sort of like that part...). Everyone looks like a stuffed up turkey waiting to be served on Christmas Eve's night.
Precisely the time when our fingers are way too numb to even move, let alone write, all the poor children have to give their final examinations on frigid mornings of February. I really think the schools must revise examination schedules and set them at times when it's OK to step out of your house.
Stepping out of your house. That's also an enormous problem, considering the thick blanket of fog that comfortably settles over the town at the break of dawn-- another event that does not bother to be on time. You can't possibly get out of bed when the sun doesn't want you to! It is said that one must go to bed when the sun sets and rise with the sun itself. The school doesn't understand this simple logic, does it? It is an ELEPHANT TASK to get out of bed. Your eyelids are frozen. Your body is nice and warm under layers of blankets, feeling like the pea in the story of 'Princess and the Pea'-- unrecognized and unfazed by anyone and anything. Then it hits you like a truck that the school bus arrives in fifteen minutes and you scramble out of the bed onto the icy floor, yelp like a hyena, skip the bath, have a hasty breakfast, and rush.
And do you know what the school does? Delays classes by fifteen minutes. Because that's the best they can do.
Had I not slept like a polar bear in tenth grade, I swear to God, I could've done way better in my board examinations. But then, when was the last time life played by your rules? Noo, it slapped a rule book in my face customized to make living tough.