Confession: Bins and I do not Share Beds. We can’t. He says I snore like a diesel engine. I say he rotates in his sleep like a spin-dryer. Of course, we both claim the other one is lying. The only solution is that we sleep in single beds, separately.

Which is fine. Except, of course, when a blizzard strikes Elsewhere. Bins has only seen snow once in his life. He was five years old at the time, in France. He says he spent the entire six weeks away from Pondicherry feeling miserable. Here, now, he is initially excited to see fine white specks drifting down from the heavy grey clouds. He goes outside in his balaclava and puffy jacket, expecting to be struck down by instant frostbite. He comes back utterly contemptuous. “That’s not snow, pah! That’s COSMIC DANDRUFF!”

He can’t understand why the climate-wallahs on the radio are making such a fuss. “Nothing compared to our cyclones. Palm trees whipping back and forth! Sixty-foot waves! Floods! Landslides! Bloated corpses!” An hour later though, the wind begins to blow. The flakes come pelting down in big white clumps. They strike the windows with a soft, relentless thock... thock... thock. A mild sound laden with danger.

“Good thing the power doesn’t go off here in the DecadentWest,” says Bins. Shhhh, I say. “It’ll be baaaad if it goes off, ya,” he says. “Cold.” Stop, I tell him. The Weather Gods will hear you and then... Sure enough, a moment later the power’s gone.

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and we’re both dressed in t-shirts and jeans. By four o’clock, we’re wearing all our warm clothing, looking like two giant lobsters in down jackets that make zip!zip! sounds with every movement. By six, night has fallen. By eight, our mobiles and my landline are dead.

By nine, we are chewing cold sardines by candlelight. No power means no tea, coffee, soup or anything hot. By 10, the overhead tanks are dry. By 11, we’re so cold we decide to follow the advice given to James Bond in the movie The Spy Who Loved Me. “Share bodily warmth,” the sultry Russian spy tells him, when the two of them are forced to spend a night out on the tundra. Which is great for Bond, as his partner has plenty of heat to spare.

Bins and I by contrast are so heavily clad, we can’t share anything more intimate than a fist-bump. I don’t have a double-bed, but there’s an air-mattress. The air pump won’t work, of course. So we lie down on the deflated mattress with two queen-size comforters draped over ourselves, feeling colder than ever. Bins doesn’t have the energy to thrash about or complain about my non-existent snoring.

We wake up to silence: still no power. But outside a pristine white blanket covers the world, glittering in the pale sunshine. Dunkin’ Donuts is open. Soon we’re drinking steaming hot coffee. I see Bins nodding. “No bloated corpses,” he says. He raises his cup. “Dieu merci.”

(Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist writes about her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column)

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