Silver touch
Sir — During its 33 years in the public domain, the internet has had several transformations, from the blog-posts era to the social media era to the Artificial Intelligence revolution. With each new iteration, information has become more unreliable, more bite-sized, more polarising. Amidst this, Wikipedia, which turned 25 this year, seems to be an island of refuge. It was once dismissed as unreliable because anyone could edit it. That openness is precisely why it now matters. At a time when the internet is saturated with AI-generated text that mimics authority without accountability, Wikipedia remains anchored in human checks and balances. Every claim is argued over, sourced, challenged and revised in public view. Errors are debated and corrected.
Rima Roy,
Calcutta
Dignity restored
Sir — January 2026 will be remembered for a landmark judicial intervention that addressed a daily reality faced by schoolgirls. The Supreme Court recognised menstrual health as part of the right to life under Article 21. Free sanitary napkins and hygiene facilities in all schools, especially government institutions, can reduce absenteeism and dropouts. Implementation of this mandate may strain limited budgets, yet the cost of inaction is higher for girl children and their future. Girls deserve schooling without stigma attached to a biological process.
Chitra Ghosh,
Calcutta
Sir — A significant change in public health thinking will come from the Supreme Court’s directions on menstrual hygiene in schools. The order links education, health and dignity in simple terms. Schools are spaces where social attitudes are shaped early. Normalising menstruation there can reduce shame beyond classrooms.
Meenakshi Behera,
Calcutta
Sir — The Supreme Court’s order on menstrual hygiene management addresses a neglected cause of school absenteeism. Lack of sanitary products forces girls to stay home during periods. Over time, learning gaps widen and performance declines.
P. Khandelwal,
Calcutta
Sir — Menstrual health rarely receives policy attention despite its impact on girls’ education. By calling dignity a lived experience, the Supreme Court acknowledged the everyday humiliation faced by girl students.
Dhananjay Sinha,
Calcutta
Sir — Even before the Supreme Court linked menstrual health with the right to life, public health policy for women took a notable turn with Maharashtra launching menopause clinics in government hospitals. Kerala followed soon after. Menopause affects nearly one-third of a woman’s life and raises risks of heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. Yet it remains poorly discussed. State-run clinics make care accessible beyond urban elites. This shift treats mid-life health as a priority, not an afterthought linked only to reproduction.
P.V. Prakash,
Patiala, Punjab
Season’s poetry
Sir — I read “Mellow, but not mild” (Jan 28) on Calcutta’s winter with recognition and pleasure. In it, Uddalak Mukherjee writes: “For most of the heat-soaked or rain-drenched year, the terrace is, literally and metaphorically, an outlier; removed from the torso of the house.” But for those of us who grew up in Calcutta in the 1970s, summer did not push us inside. Summer pushed us out. It was a survival routine shaped by regular, debilitating power cuts that could swallow entire afternoons and long stretches of the night. In those hours, the interior became the trap. The balcony and the terrace were not optional appendages, not outliers. They were the house’s lungs. In that Calcutta, the terrace was not just reclaimed by winter. It was claimed by summer, repeatedly, with the desperation and the inventiveness that only powerless homes understand. We fell asleep under a sky that felt closer than the ceiling ever did, waking up to the sound of a generator sputtering to life somewhere.
Shubhra Roy,
Calcutta
Sir — Uddalak Mukherjee’s piece on Calcutta’s winter belongs to a lineage of writing that treats domestic architecture as emotionally active rather than inert. Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space comes immediately to mind. Bachelard argues that corners, thresholds, windows, ledges are not neutral features but sites where memory, reverie, and intimacy gather. A similar sensitivity runs through Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day where domestic interiors register emotional shifts more faithfully than dialogue ever could. In Desai’s work, stillness, light, and seasonal change quietly surface long-buried tensions and affections. The Calcutta essay operates in the same register, allowing walls, balconies, and even damp-stained surfaces to speak, not metaphorically but materially, of time passing and relationships altering.
Yashodhara Sen,
Calcutta
Sir — The piece, “Mellow, but not mild”, is compelling because it treats seasons as forces that reorganise urban life. Winter redistributes attention. Terraces return as rooms. Balconies become thresholds between thought and street. Window ledges briefly acquire purpose. These changes reshape posture, pace, and mood. Bodies linger. Time loosens. A chair in the sun or a quilt outdoors becomes both a spatial and an emotional choice. The essay also exposes how provisional architecture really is. The piece reveals cities as lived arrangements constantly renegotiated by climate and desire.
Souradeep Dey,
Calcutta
Sir — Winter is not a passive backdrop to life; it is an active force that reshapes how people think, feel, and inhabit their surroundings. It slows routines, compresses social life, and replaces constant motion with moments of pause. This shift is not a loss of vitality but a sharpening of attention. Spaces that feel ordinary acquire new meaning. Rooms become sites of reflection, thresholds invite lingering, and silence gains value. Winter teaches endurance without drama and comfort without indulgence. Emotionally, it balances intimacy with solitude. In a culture obsessed with stimulation, winter resists spectacle and rewards patience, shaping memory and mood long after the cold fades.
Aditya Kamble,
Kalaburagi, Karnataka