Winter And Coconut Oil

It was winter.

Already old Rameshar had opened up his ragged coarse jacket and monkey cap from his tin trunk. But sometimes he used to get confused with the whimsical behavior of Nature or Weather Broadcast or himself...he was not sure. Seasons behaved so oddly now-a days…sometimes hot and the next time cold. You could not predict anything and could not be sure of it. But others took his concern as his old age fallacies when he expressed his concern.

If he said, “Today is so hot”, his elder son grimaced, “ It is January” as if in January there could not be any hot day.

“Old age means another Rip-van-winkle”, they used to say...his sons, daughters-in-law, and even that old lady herself, his age-old companion. God knew what made her think herself aloof from him, her white hair or toothless gum.

Anyway, he did not give chance to others’ jeering. He just opened up the lid of the coconut oil container. The liquid inside was enough to forecast the season. Its stiffness or liquidity clearly insinuated the actual temperament of the weather. Then even if he felt hot or cold he could involve in self-discovery without being anxious about any blame for his mental insanity from anyone. But he didn't share this little science with anyone. This was his own trick to identify the season.

The day he felt uneasy even in the mid of January he just looked at the Dabba and if it showed slushy oil he got confirmation of the mist and fog and clouds in the sky. So taking good precautions for the next morning he went to sleep under a thin worn-away rug and slept comfortably without the least knowledge of someone tossing uneasily beside him under a heavy quilt.

Anyhow in the morning when everyone complained about the unexpected hot weather of the previous night and sleeplessness he just chuckled.

Everything was so fine and Rameshar was so happy and proud that he gained two kg weight ignoring the netizen's singeing words.

But one day everything changed. In the bitter cold, Rameshar's frog skin started wiping out like the snake's cover and his skeleton started rattling in his rib-bone. He hurriedly checks the coconut oil... it was a new bottle with a slim flower-printed body. But it was even then all liquid with a beautiful smell of jasmine perfume. It had no prophetic power. It was as liquid in bitter winter as in searing summer.