"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." These are the opening lines of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's famous book One Hundred Years of Solitude.
As for me, I vividly remember that Christmas eve when I discovered ice for the first time. Living in a tropical place, lashed by torrential monsoons and dotted with evergreen forests, winter and snow were but sheer magical fantasies for me. Gentle snow flakes dancing in the air, the heavy blanket of ice covering rooftops, chimneys and pine trees were still pictures out of a childhood story book. Then, when in the Himalayan valleys of Manali I experienced snow, it was breathtakingly beautiful despite the bone chilling cold. When I gathered snow into my gloved hands for a snow ball fight, it was every bit of what I imagined it to be.. The snow capped mountains resembled an enormous yummy black forest cake, with rocky parts exposed in between the expanse of ice. The leafless apple orchards, the Buddhist prayer flags fluttering high in the wind and the pack of donkeys transporting the people uphill added to the magical aura of the Himalayan Valley...
