Delhi Summer

Summers in Delhi are special. They are very different from other summers in other cities, with its own unique taste and texture and feel that you have to live before you love. I for one am yet to love.

For me so far, it has only been a miserable and oppressive sunlight that beats down on you, dust that rises to resettle in your skin and hair at the slightest breath of movement, noise of heavy traffic that permeats the shimmering glint of heat, reflections of smoldering tarmac and harried people trying to find shade, jostling you in the streets... Essentially I am hot, bothered and in all probability dehydrated as well.

"Lovable no doubt, but a dried out prune all the same" in the words of someone, who from above statement, is obviously quite wisdomous... Actually what he said was "Ohh I LOVE prunes!!!" with a great deal of enthusiasm, when I complained of resembling one off late. I figure mathematic rules of "if a=b, and b=c then a=??" should apply to language as well. Also I'm much starved for compliments these days, and vanity does not let me sleep in peace.


...

In another 3 weeks I will be home. The knowledge of one year gone past is yet to sink in. Not now, not ever really, can I recall a 'homesickness' so to speak. Merely a "sick of here and now" accompanied by a strong something that would draw me back into a world that I thought, had given me everything it ever could.

Now I have to prepare to leave, all that I have known for a year - college, friends and the satisfaction of being busy. And prepare to be enveloped by a gilded summer in a city that I can never cease to love.

Once again there will be more streets than roads, sand between my toes from walks on the beach, nights that are quiet because the city is asleep and warm winds that caress the sunshine. I will find that I can comfortably predict with an uncanny sense of accuracy, all those who will surround me - friends who I have known long enough and well enough to miss. My father will disagree with my politics, just so he can check for himself, if I have grown at all as a person. There will be visible relief on my sister's face. Vanilla softies will sell for lesser, South Indian coffee will stem my caffeine addiction, bookstores will be smaller and adorably cluttered, the radio channels will sound better and there will be grass wherever I go.

Finally, I can leave behind all the tax-exclusive prices, noisy traffic and endlessly accumulating dust. I can leave it all behind for my own bed back home, with its characteristic soft sheets that my mother changes every week while thinking of me.