The smell of winter and its hand-knitted love

Back then, winters arrived early and were biting cold, unlike today, when the winter
season is almost disappearing with reduced snowfall. All the children in our colony wore layers of hand-knitted, colourful sweaters and wrapped themselves in oversized shawls as we sat on the
ground to watch Ram Lila shows for nine consecutive nights, culminating with the Dussehra
festival on the tenth day

By Nidhi Jamwal

Smells have a way of triggering memories. This connection is perhaps forged in childhood and stays
with us.
It could be the smell of a dal tadka wafting out from a neighbour’s home, the fragrance of some flower,
the heady aroma of a blooming Saptaparni tree, or the petrichor that announces that the rains are not far away.

The pungent smell of naphthalene balls (used to store woollens and blankets safely) never fails to
remind me of approaching winters in my hill town of Jyotipuram, in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K),
where I grew up.

Back then, winters arrived early and were biting cold, unlike today, when the winter season is almost
disappearing with reduced snowfall. All the children in our colony wore layers of hand-knitted,
colourful sweaters and wrapped themselves in oversized shawls as we sat on the ground to watch Ram lila shows for nine consecutive nights, culminating with the Dussehra festival on the tenth day (but that’s a story for another time!)

My mother waited for the thin snowline to appear on the mountains that surrounded our town and she
would begin the elaborate pre-winter ceremony of unlocking steel trunks and retrieving our hand-
knitted woolens.

Woolmark chequered blankets and white lihaaf-covered rajais (quilts) were taken out from a large
wooden petti (storage box). We were kept at arm’s length as there was a very real danger of our tiny
fingers getting crushed if the huge lid of the wooden petti fell on them.

As soon as the trunks were pulled out from the dark store room and opened, the smell of the
naphthalene balls (mothballs) filled the room. We coughed and sneezed blissfully ignorant then of the
toxicity of the fumes (I learnt of that much later when I started working as an environmental journalist).

While we were forbidden from touching the white naphthalene balls that were hidden inside the folds
of woollens to keep them safe from moths and silverfish, we thought nothing of breaking the rules. We
secretly played with them and wondered how and why the mothballs shrank in size, and sometimes
completely disappeared (sublimation, we later learnt).

Decades later, even now, if I smell naphthalene anywhere — a saree shop, or a train toilet — I
immediately connect it with the onset of winters in Jyotipuram.

Closely associated with the mothballs were the woollens. Hand-knit sweaters, mufflers, caps, vests and socks made their appearance and were sunned on terraces, balconies, on every available chair and on the clotheslines. The sun banished the pungent smell of naphthalene and disinfected the woollens in the most eco-friendly and energy-saving manner.

Winter afternoons were spent playing cricket with friends while mothers in the colony sat on cane
chairs, knitting and exchanging knitting designs.

Their knitting needles moved swiftly, the ladies rarely even looked at them as they chatted and
discussed the latest episode of Ramayan on TV, or planned a ladies’ club event. That was multitasking
at its best.

In the 1980s, there was only one brand of woollens — Mothers’ Knit — because all our woollens were
knit by our mothers. There were no ready-made sweaters, not at least where I lived. Fluffy light-weight
wool came from Jammu (100 kilometres away), which were then converted into tightly wrapped wool
balls.

Empty plastic containers of Johnson’s Baby Powder were cut open from their neck and aluminium
knitting needles were parked there in pairs based on their sizes. Knitting needles were often borrowed
or shared.

A newborn baby was always gifted a complete set of woollen wear including booties, mittens and a
knitted cap with a pompom bobbing on its top.

The woollen socks, pullovers and high-necks that our mothers knitted for hours gave them shoulder
and neck pain, but gave us extra warmth.

I remember when we moved to Delhi in the mid-1990s, I still wore hand-knit sweaters to my posh
college in south Delhi. But hand-knit sweaters were looked down upon in big cities, as I learnt (‘Too
poor to afford a ready-made pullover!’; ‘Mother doesn’t ‘work’ so has a lot of free time to knit’…).

Therapeutic knitting

The world is now going backwards and knitting is being increasingly adopted in the Western world as a
form of therapy! Research studies show the many health benefits of knitting.

A recent study by the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, published in the Journal of Occupational
Science
, shows that knitting is beneficial for people living with mental health issues. Knitting is said to
bring a sense of calm and give life a meaningful rythm.

The New York Times has quoted a 2009University of British Columbia study of 38 women who were
suffering with the eating disorder ‘anorexia nervosa’. They were taught to knit. Learning the craft led to
significant improvements. Seventy-four percent of the women said the activity lessened their fears and
kept them from worrying about their problems.

Another 2011 study found that those who engaged in crafts like knitting and crocheting had a
diminished chance of developing mild cognitive impairment and memory loss. There are others, who
compare the repeated movements of knitting with breathing exercises and mindful meditation.

I learnt to knit as a child and along with my siblings, we regularly knitted woollen wear for our dolls.
My younger brother created the best designs. We also knitted mufflers and scarves.

I haven’t picked up the knitting needles for decades now. Life in a big city like Mumbai is full of stress.
Maybe I should go back to knitting.

Nidhi Jamwal is a Mumbai-based journalist who reports on environment, climate and rural issues.
Follow her on X @JamwalNidhi

Kashmir photos on top by Neelofar Khan.

The article was first published in the Kashmir Times.

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