In about six weeks the fog will come down over the Ganga. The mornings will turn grey and wet. Someone in your house will open the trunk, and the sweaters will come out.
Look at the one you wore most last winter. Under the arms. Along the sides where your bag strap sat. On the cuffs.
Tiny balls of fuzz. Dozens of them.
Most people think that's dirt, or lint from some other cloth. It isn't. Those little balls are your sweater. Fibres that came loose from the yarn, tangled together, and stayed stuck to the surface. Every pill is a small piece of the garment that has already worn out.
Where they come from
Yarn is made of short fibres twisted together. Rub it, and the loose ends work their way out. They tangle with their neighbours. They knot into a ball. The ball holds on by a few fibres that are still anchored in the knit.
So pills grow where there's friction.
Think about how you wear a sweater in a Patna winter. Two-wheeler to office on Bailey Road, arms on the handlebar, the wind pushing the cloth against you. Backpack straps on the way to coaching in Boring Road. A shawl over the top, rubbing all day. Sitting on the floor at a relative's house with your elbows on your knees. Every one of those is a surface grinding against the knit.
Then you wash it.
The wash does most of the damage
A sweater in a bucket with jeans is a sweater being scrubbed by denim. A sweater in a machine on the normal cycle is a sweater rubbing against everything else for forty minutes. The agitation pulls fibres loose faster than a whole week of wearing.
Hot water makes it worse. It loosens the fibres and, if the sweater is wool, shrinks it too.
And then there's the material. The cheap bright sweaters from the winter stalls near Gandhi Maidan are usually acrylic, or an acrylic blend. Acrylic fibres are strong. That sounds good, but it's the problem. When a wool pill forms, it often breaks off and falls away on its own. When an acrylic pill forms, the anchor fibres refuse to break. The ball sits there for the life of the sweater.
That's why the ₹400 sweater looks old by January and your nani's hand-knitted woollen still looks decent after ten winters.
How to stop them
You can't make a knit immune to friction. You can cut most of it out.
Turn it inside out
Before every wash. The outside face never touches the bucket or the drum. Pills still form on the inside, where nobody sees them.
Wash it alone, or with soft things
No jeans. No towels. Nothing with zips, hooks, or Velcro. If you use a machine, put the sweater in a mesh laundry bag and run the wool or delicate cycle, cold water, low spin.
Don't scrub
If you wash by hand, press the sweater down into the water and lift it. Squeeze gently. Never rub one part against another. Never use a brush. Never beat it. Rinse in cool water.
Use less detergent
A mild liquid, a small amount. Powder that doesn't dissolve sits in the knit and adds grit, and grit is friction.
Dry it flat
Roll it in a towel to press out water. Then lay it flat on a dry sheet, in shade. Not on the line. A wet sweater on a line stretches at the shoulders, and the clip leaves a bump.
Wash it less
A sweater worn over a shirt doesn't need a wash after every wear. Air it overnight on the back of a chair. Wash it when it actually smells or shows a stain. Fewer washes means fewer pills.
Removing the ones you already have
Don't pull them. Pulling a pill drags more fibres out of the yarn, and a new one forms in the same spot.
Cut them instead. A fabric shaver costs a few hundred rupees and does it in minutes. Lay the sweater flat on a table and move the shaver in small, light circles. If you don't have one, a new disposable razor works. Hold the cloth taut and glide the razor flat over the surface. Go slow. Press too hard and you'll cut the yarn.
A pair of small scissors is fine for a few big pills on a cuff.
Do this before the wash, not after. Pills that go into the water catch more loose fibre and grow.
What you buy next time
Rub the sleeve of a sweater between your fingers in the shop. If fuzz is already rising, it will pill hard. Look at the label. Pure wool and tightly knit cotton hold up well. Higher acrylic and polyester content means more stubborn pills. A tight knit beats a loose, fluffy one, because the fibres have less room to escape.
Before the trunk opens
When the sweaters come out this year, do one thing first. Lay each one on the bed and look at it in daylight. Shave off last winter's pills. Then wash it inside out, cold, alone, and dry it flat.
It takes about twenty minutes per sweater.
If that's twenty minutes you don't have on a Sunday in December, give them to DoorWash. We wash woollens separately, in cold water, on a gentle cycle, and dry them flat. You'll get them back folded, ready for the fog.