The twin chills of Delhi and Kolkata

In Kolkata, ever sensitive to the slightest dip in the mercury, monkey caps are out all hours of the day. Dilliwalas, who pride themselves on their ability to handle winter chills, concede that this has been an unusually cold season, even by their standards. Across the Gangetic plain, as people shudder and scurry for the warmth of a roadside fire, people wonder whether such intense chills are here to stay as a fallout of climate change, or whether the winter of 2012-13 is a statistical fluke. Weathermen and climatologists have their own explanation: they attribute the extended chill to an icy western draught sweeping in from northern Pakistan to north India. How apt, considering the chill that has descended on relations between the two countries after a protracted thaw, which survived even the Mumbai attacks of November, 2008. Farmers are happy that the hailstones which rained down on north India last week did not do much damage to crops. The rains which followed could mean a bountiful winter harvest.

But, moving away from solidly grounded explanations for the chill, we would like to venture a more idealistic one: our winters are converging to match the literary landscapes of those Nordic crime writers whose books now climb India's bestseller lists with alacrity. As we follow Inspector Wallander pondering human nature in the icy gloom of Sweden, or stay awake at night with an Inspector Hole thriller based in the snows of Norway, or shiver at the dark mysteries unearthed by Detective Erlendur in Iceland, the chill around us intensifies, prompting us to pull the blanket tighter. For some weeks at least, real chills accompany those running up our spines as we turn the pages of Nordic noir. In atmospheric terms, the twin chills are hard to match.