I try and embrace the morning. I have to let go in disgust. It chokes me, surrounds me with its empty stickiness. I regret my action almost immediately, quickly retrieving my outstretched arms. I recoil in horror at the prospect of stepping out. Showering just to sweat. Profusely. By this time the heat has built its aggression around me, in my hair, at the back of my legs, in crevasses I didn’t know existed. I shut my eyes, fall back into bed. Maybe solace can yet be achieved. I discover the redundance of drawing covers, finding them unnecessary and unhelpful to bridge the gap between sleep and uncomfortable dozing. I have no choice. Heat, the adversary, wins the dying battle. I get up, swing my legs around, let my toes touch the temporary coolness of the mosaic. And then all promises disappear.
I wait and wait. A car ride that must be undertaken. A car AC that is refused usage because of lack of petrol. Two women in the backseat, coping.
They shut their eyelids as their kajal runs in crazy streams down their powdered faces, merging with rivulets of sweat. They clutch anything that even remotely promises temporary relief. Handkerchiefs, Air India face wipes, water bottles. I look on. Tar turns to mirage. All possible forms of human transportation lines up, to get to offices, where they’ll encounter more lines, sweat more. But right now they must tackle the sordid heat. Splay it all over their bodies and their families, five to a scooter.
I look away in guilt. I found my escape. I’m the tiniest demographic of the AC age. The AC pervades the senses, fills them, rides up to the right places. The old monument soothes the parched eyesight. Stone meets smooth stone. Respite inhaled. Guilt exhaled.
Yet again the city turns traitor, abandons you to whimsical stirrings in the sky. There is a silver lining and there isn’t. Clouds peek from behind celestial mountains of cement, fill the gaps with the intermittent blue sky. Soon the blue vanishes, leaves only dark angry grey. One flash of brilliance streaks across, running parallel to the skyline, parting the sober drape of clouds and reaching down to the bridge, where they’re still waiting, the mere mortals, five to a scooter.
The sky has turned itself inside out, revealing to me everything that it normally hides. A car ride again. I’m in the back seat again, enjoying my exclusive demographic advantage. The knot of guilt forms as people run for cover. They’re drenched again, for different reasons. The day draws to a close quickly, the darkness ushered in faster than otherwise, shuts the door to all possible positive feeling. Atleast the heat could be explained, given shape and dealt with. Unprecedented rain is like the limbless beggar at the traffic light. You don’t escape it, give in, jingle a few coins. You fall out with your will. A hailstone hits you flat in your face. Your surprise is unchecked, comes out in broken syllables that make you sound like your two years old. You think the world is coming to an end.
The bed seems like a battered island, I’ve traveled many seasons to get to it. Once again the same covers, clutched tightly now, the rain has worked. I look at the little red mark the hailstorm made over my knuckle, as if to mark its existence. To remember it, I write it down. A three o’ clock, the sky is calm. But my mind isn’t.
Never diss the weather.
