Summertime

I woke up this morning thinking of 'Summertime'. I love that song. It always lights up something lovely inside. Besides it's Summertime here right now. The other day I was discussing seasons with someone and she said she didn't like summer - too hot, she didn't like the monsoon - too wet, she didn't like the spring - too many leaves dropping off, and she didn't like the winter - too cold. With that attitude, I said encouragingly, you should sail through life. I should have mentioned, she said, I don't like sailing.

Actually, I'm bit of a grouch myself. And quite an original one too. I have lost count of the times I've announced lately that summer is HOT. It's supposed to be, my mother said the first time I said that, and thereafter ignored me. The government isn't being particularly helpful either - deciding to save on electricity by cutting us off daily at the height of the heat between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. It's a torture. But - and so I console myself - at least I'm not in Agra right now. I can't stand the heat and I chose to go there in blazing May once - everything shimmered at a distance, all the houses appeared to be designed in the opposite direction to the natural wind currents (not that I detected there were any anyway), and I wilted despite watering myself under the tap every twenty minutes. And, when I went to see the Taj Mahal, of course I went at High Noon and I burnt my feet thoroughly on the scalding white marble. It was truly a horrendous experience and romance never even peeped over the horizon. Made you wonder if Shah Jahan had truly, deeply, madly loved Mumtaz Mahal after all. I mean, if I had been a love-struck Mughal Emperor, I would have chosen a better spot to build a tomb. Why not some place with a nice view of snow mountains, lots of greenery, and a lot of COOL weather?

Of course I changed my mind about the Taj Mahal after I saw it again in the winter - it remains truly grand and this, given the pollution and the overall public and political disrespect for our national heritage, is some achievement - but I still insist he got the location wrong.

I'm a mountain person through and through and I get depressed just passing through places like Punjab. Since I'm getting side-tracked, Bihar and the Uttar Pradesh are two other states in India that I wouldn't voluntarily pass through - I suppose you all have heard of the Wild, Wild West? - well, these two states are the prime samples of the Wild, Wild East. Here, outlaws flourish and bandits flower and a medieval mind-set roughly meanders along. And everyone that is not a thug immigrates. Unfortunately these immigrants tend to find themselves grappling with the same sort of problems that the long-ago immigrants in the American West once had to grapple with - the boundless lands of opportunity beyond are peopled by hostile Indians and they don't want to lose an inch of a ground to the new-comers. Of course, like the American Indians of yore, they have lost more than an inch and that makes them furious. You get to hear lots of plans to remedy the situation. One was really interesting and the government should take note - because, said the individual that suggested it, it will also resolve the Kashmir Issue once and for all - if Pakistan wants Kashmir, we INSIST on handing over Bihar and UP as well, otherwise no dice. I don't think it will work. Pakistan already has Baluchistan.

But to return to the topic, there are just two months more of summer. Not a long time. That's kind of funny. When I was a young kid, summer used to STRETCH! And I never complained about the heat, just - Ma, what should I DO? Of course I did a lot without her needing to suggest anything, but that was kind of a favorite whine every time I felt her attention was wandering from the principle object of attention - me.

The last day of school was the BEST. You couldn't WAIT to get home, which would be teeming with cousins by then. There would be terrific outings - movies, picnics, shopping - and Kulfi (ice-cream), and custard and seven varieties of jelly, and six different flavors of Rasna (a drink) in the frig and large pink slices of water-melon. There would be afternoon adventures when the grown-ups slept - finding new routes to the terrace, usually using a rickety bamboo ladder, the narrow window ledges, a drain pipe or two, and cane stools, building a tree-house in the Acacia, learning to ski on a floor liberally sprinkled with talcum powder, and so on. There would be long evenings of furious games and plenty of family bickering. There would be long bright nights, with walks and stars and singing. There would be long-drawn out Meals that were always loud, excited affairs with ten or twenty people at one sitting, and everyone getting maudlin about being together and invoking the 'old times' when such togetherness was an everyday fare. Bed time was arranging mattresses in a long row on the floor and snuggling down next to your favorite cousin and whispering until you finally dozed off - happy in the knowledge that tomorrow they would all be still here and the day after that and after that - summer was endless and so were the possibilities.

These days things are a tad different. I long out-grew school, the tribe has split up, and summer is only three months, but at least the possibilities are still there. Yesterday evening, by the pond, I learned something new - Goldfish EAT water-melon!