Winter is the cruelest season of all the season. Cruel like a tyrant or an oppressor. It kills what is green, deforms what is beautiful and dethrones the pleasurable seasons. No mercy it shows to the old, kids, women and men-all are tortured by its harshness, barbarianism and its ruthlessness. Tyranny knows no gender, no age difference and no innocence. It knows no law but the law to dominate by whatever means it can and as long as it could. It torn all that stands in its way; standing before might is rebellion and rebels have been executed since ages. Executions are meant to kill the revolution but human history bears witness to the testimony that revolutions may be thwarted but cannot be killed. Pharaoh ordered the killing of all infants to stop the revolution. But could he? No Moses has to appear to dawn a new dawn. Socrates killing becomes important as it can ‘corrupt’ the youth and corruption of that sort is tantamount to rebellion, hence execution is justified. All is done to justify what may be unjust and just people are executed for the unjust system. Status quo is what matters. Eying to jackboot all that could challenge the status quo the winter sometimes freezes temperature below the bearable level; the aim remains to make the revolutionaries to surrender and to throw the fervor of revolution into the freezer; where, it believes, the fervor will never ever come to life again. But the snow melts, and it is in the very nature of the snow to melt.
The winter is devil and cannot tolerate any beauty thus force all botanical beauties to undress by snatching what beautifies them. Ornamentation defines a sense of value, prestige, a sense of liberty and security. Snatch all that makes individual’s self a conscious self, his being a thinking being. How come they fear not the winter, a deadly monster? Fear is enslavement and a fearless person is a liberated person. Fear is the demarcation line between slavery and liberty and all have a choice as which side of line they want themselves to be. Fear is the quantum of barbarianism unleashed, the acts of ghostly faces that are used to hound in the dark dreadful nights; the dark dreadful nights themselves a creation of occupation and force. Fear is loneliness, isolation, destituteness, wait for a seen but probably unseen, for a known but probably unknown; fear is massacre of self, butcher of personality and annihilation of soul. Liberty is rebellion from fear. Winter is liberty phobic. It invents all means to curtail freedom; sometimes snow does the job and sometimes the cruel icy winds. When they blow a complete blockade is exercised and people are forced to remain indoors- a curfew indeed. This forceful imposition of restrictions makes life dull and tough. It does not only try to block the communication and transportation but it also wants to block what is new. New is innovation, change and the rejection of all the old that is unjust, irrational and barbaric. With the dullness around, the winter tries hard to ossify the minds and to block all what is new so as to make people fatalistic. The fatalistic approach to life snatches dynamism from the life, it snatches movement, purpose and all colours from the life. Life turns white, white as shroud.
Curse to the winter as it with lives and make tulips fade, graveyards grow in size with small graves covering the most of the area. It undresses the trees by forcing them to shed their leaves. They remain naked and the icy winds tear them apart. The cruelness manifests all around. It forces species to migrate, if they do not, there is no mercy for anyone. The slogan is bold and loud- vacates or perish. Oh you brute! The nightingales disappear, so do the doves. Alas! The sage withers and no birds sing. Oh the cruel winter! Have you ever encountered the pain of leaving your homeland? How can you, you have no heart to realize, no soul to feel. Ask the birds whose nests you demolish, ask them how it feels to become homeless, ask them how painful it is to see the homes, the homes where they dream about their dreams, destroyed, dwellings dynamited and habitats bulldozed.
The winter is a killer, a merciless killer. It strangulates all green under the shroud like burden. The strangulation is so high that it chocks the wind pipe and kills lives for want of a free air. Freedom is undesirable, as if evil. An enemy of life, it forces beautiful lallies to fade and lucies to die. The death rooms free, it reigns. Alas! The Deaths reign. The Death carries its cruelty for a simple reason; affording life is its death, thus killing becomes living – the quest for survival indeed! But how long will the Death live and reign. Even the Death has to die. Life will prevail and win. Life is eternal and death temporary and what is temporary vanishes like fog.
The winter is all mighty and rules like a military state. The windy nights, the deadly fog and the mist, the icy cold storms, the snow and the freezed temperatures are but its soldiers. They are on its back and call, under its command, ready to unleash terror and fear, as tyrants have unleashed in all the ages. Tear and fear are means to subjugate and subjugation of this sort is a nuisance and forced silence a massacre. It massacres souls to prolong darkness and indeed during the winter, the days become short and the nights prolong. The prolongation of night is just a bend in the road and not the end of the road. All nights, irrespective of how long and how harsh, finally end and it dawns. It dawns even if a single ray pierces the darkness of the night. Dawn comes after butchering of millions of stars of utmost beauty and value. Sacrifice is thus precondition for dawning. As is eloquently put by Faiz Ahmad Faiz:
Dil Na Umeed to Nehi Nakam He To He
Limbi He Gham Ki Sham Magar Sham He To Te
The Author is Assistant Professor Political Science
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