Winters start with a huge disadvantage. They are cold and opposite of warmth and by this very association ring a negative. So, it was easier for Shakespeare to say: Now is the winter of our discontent, and as the huge barren treeless, cold stony, hilly moors must have spread as far as the eye could see for Richard The Third in the then Britain. The same dilemma has befuddled the colours white and black by their in-built connotation. The night is black and dark and is hence zulm – in our language (Urdu) meaning injustice and unfairness. Not being given one’s due is the night while white of the day is bright and clear – something that has nothing opaque about it and is transparent. Heat, hot and warm are all positives expressions while cold, cool and freezing all sound to be the very opposite. And thus, a transformation into an image seems to be an inevitability.

The two seasons that figure in our Persian-inspired poetry are bahaar and khizaan – spring and autumn, while in the poetry that has more local hue it is bahaar and saawan. But nobody talks of winter – it is encased in autumnal references with the shedding of leaves, a denudation of sorts.

Due to the searing summer heat, winters are welcomed here as a cozier option, and for a fact these are shorter. What is short and swift holds more value than what is aplenty, but whether winters’ comfort and screening off of the heat has been translated into the arts equally and fairly is debatable. In the grand classical tradition of music, there may be ragas associated with bahaar/ basant and megh/ malhaars. But there is nothing specific about the cold endless nights that can only be referred to as symbols for firaaq (parting). Wisaal (union) is wrapped in warmth with nights passing too swiftly to foreshorten desire.

The winter light or sun is considered to be ideal for painting – especially if it happens to be portrayal of beautiful women, demure and not assertive enough to break forth with the rush of summer-hot bright sunlight.

The British colonialists wanted us to break away from the hugely stylised imagery of our poetry. They failed to discover the local conditions in our poetry. They wanted the seasons, the earth, the smells, birds and animals and the foliage reflected in it and initiated a whole movement where Hali, Azad, Maulvi Muqarrab Ali, Krishan Lal, Talib etc wrote about the local trees, plants, flowers, seasons, the colours of the earth and the scent of the air. But it was only a synthetic affair as the mainstream expression took over and enriched it with layers of meaning as amalgamated tradition. It seemed so much more wholesome than the one-dimensional nature of poetry rendered as mere description. The wealth of our cultural past adorned the expression that is fully kneaded in our behaviours and attitudes. Any departure appears to be a one-off affair not backed by the richness of allusion.

But winters are, still, metaphors for the dull and dreary and the passwords for isolation and sadness. There may be coinage like gulabi jaara but it is more wrapped up in ambivalence and that prompts romance. Lack of clarity breeds uncertainty and a lack of full understanding recalls fuzziness and hence, is engulfed in mistiness of a foundering destination.

But generally, it is sadness whether evoked by the season

Or it is a powerful reminder of loneliness

One poet in Urdu who wrote in a less stylised manner was Nazeer Akbarabadi. He wrote about jaare ki baharain. His poetry by comparison is more descriptive and not laden with stylisations, and through the passages the life of nineteenth century Oudh, Akbarabaad, Lucknow can be glimpsed into.

Perhaps it is easier to identify the literal from the metaphoric in poetry that is more descriptive or epical in character but since the mainstream Urdu poetical expression has centred round the ghazal, its hugely aphoristic character leads towards a heightened deciphering of the text than a marker to pin point the sources that might have done so. Our poetry, as indeed music, is responsive to many layers of civilisation and cultural overlay that have characterised our history. Being a crossroad of sorts, it had hidden within itself many cultural secrets. They do come out but in mutated forms, without exposing themselves fully but by valuing the secrecy and hence, retaining the magic of not being revealed fully. The attitudes and the passions do find ways and means of breaking out in artistic forms but do not offer themselves an easy understanding and an obvious reference.