From hot to cold, Oct is a month of contradictions

October is a month of contradictions. This is the significant calendar month that signals the arrival of winter, yet it is so unbearably hot during the day. The early morning smell is an indisputable sign that winter is on its way, during the day the last vestiges of autumn leave trees bare, as they shed their leaves. A pile of raked leaves everywhere is a common sight. The onset of winter signals the arrival of fresh fruits, vegetables, good weather and better health. At the same time the climate transition in October spells illness and gloom, a time when epidemics spread the most and consequently people fall sick.

October is primarily a month of transition - of weather, of fashion and of festivals. We are leaving behind the heat and dust of summer and looking forward to cooler days, to a series of festivals, Navratri followed by Diwali, Christmas, the wedding season and finally Uttarayan.  

In October the fashion in the stores and the window displays change. The monsoon and the Raksha Bandhan clearance sales have emptied the stocks. New winter stock is just in and the displays have changed from breezy, bright light clothing to stockings, cardigans and gloves.

The most significant festival of the months is undoubtedly Navratri.

The splash of colour is evident everywhere. All corporate advertisement campaigns suddenly change to accommodate garba themes. The multi-colour 'gamthi' clothing despite being sold like hot cakes in the Law Garden has also found its way to haute couture.

Restaurants change their themes, internal décor; menu and suddenly all of it seems to be in flavour of Navaratri. The 'dandia' is seen dangling from almost everywhere for instance from hoardings, sidewalks, walls etc.

In sharp contrast, the monsoons have just gone and there is water stagnation everywhere. The sudden rise in temperature during the end of September makes it the perfect timing for mosquitoes and germs breeding. Dengue, typhoid, swine flu and viral is rampant in the city. Every other person is falling sick. To add to the medical challenge the virus is so mutated that clinical diagnosis is getting more and more complicated.

Elsewhere October is the month of Halloween. Neighbourhoods are busy readying their front yards as ghost houses. Halloween is celebrated in a variety of ways. Children go door to door and play tricks and get themselves treated with candies from the elders.

Several societies are decorated as ghost tours and just like East-Indians go from 'pandal to pandal' to see the 'Durga murti', similarly USA families with their children go for haunted house tours. They drive through the streets where houses on either side are decorated as ghost houses; there are also competitions to adjudge the best decoration. Other Halloween activities include bonfires, costume parties, carving pumpkins and reading horror stories or watching scary movies.  Harry Houdini, the famous magician's connection to Halloween is responsible for the magic tricks and eerie activities carried out during the Halloween which is celebrated on Oct 31.

It's October which also means that one start seeing pink ribbons all over the world. As the leaves shed their leaves and change the colour, all publications and cyber media starts to wear pink. The reason behind everything going pink is that October is the Cyber Security Awareness Month.

Cool autumn nights, bright moon light symbolizes the month of October which in itself is a month of festivities and illness, magic and haunted houses, colours and cyber security, fashion, food, germs and bacteria.

— The writer is  an entrepreneur and educationist