Every morning, I expect to wake up curled up in my lep feeling warm and cosy like a butterfly in my cocoon. But as soon as I wake up, I realise that it's colder than I expected. Maybe someone left the fan on? No, that's not it. Then it must be awfully cold outside today. BUT NO! I can feel rays of sunlight burning my face. It's only a matter of time after I realise that even the thickest kombol, warmest hoodie, and fluffiest socks can't keep the cold away from me. Apparently, my favourite season is here!

However, I never stopped loving winter despite being weakened by low temperature. But sadly, it never loved me back. If anything, it got me sick everytime it showed up. While other people started winter by shopping for warm clothes and going on a pitha eating spree, I was in bed with a cold before winter even made it to Dhaka. Not only that, as a result of sickness and low temperature, anything cold was strictly off limits for me, especially ice-cream. "You'll catch a cold if you eat ice-cream," said every mom ever. But despite being sensitive to the cold, I often found myself shivering with an ice-cream cone in my hand as all my fingers froze completely. Thank God for gloves.

Among other things, I would also take out my warm clothes earlier than everyone else. And even if winter came by later than I expected, there were unusual benefits I got from it. While in summer, wearing a thin shrug over my outfit would make my friends say something like tomake dekhe amar onek gorom lagche, no one would make a fuss over it during winters. As an overly-cold winter lover, I always took advantage of this situation. As someone who's always suffered from being "too cold", I own countless thick gloves, fluffy mufflers and heavy jackets – things a person will never need as a dweller of Dhaka city. Yet, there's always at least one pair of gloves I carry around for my cold palms and a muffler to cover my frozen head.

Although, over the years I came up with countless tricks to tackle the cold weather, the ultimate weapon to surviving as a thin-blooded winter lover is to have a warm best friend you can count on who will never leave your side. By that, of course, I mean a fluffy, oversized hoodie that has unusually long sleeves. Hoodies are the ultimate lifesavers.

Antara wishes to conquer the world someday and bring back an alien from Pluto. To know more about her evil schemes, send an e-mail at [email protected]