You may have heard a jubilant singer belt out this song (from the 70s ? 60s ?)... I cannot remember any more of it.. but let me tell you.. these days, in Delhi.. the Heat is definitely On.On.. Oh yes it is!!
And there is nothing to rejoice about it. Unless you are a shredded mango, anxiously awaiting your transformation into chhunda, or cookie dough looking to be saved from certain spoilage by being transformed into a cookie.
Last night I returned to Delhi after a multi-city business trip. As on most business trips - the city was irrelevant - you go from plane to ac car to office to hotel etc. I was really looking forward to returning to my Delhi lifestyle (another blog).
As we prepared for landing they announced that the weather in Delhi was 44 degrees Celsius.....this was at 10pm at night. I have never lived in a place that gets this hot. 44 degrees Celsius - 111F - is the low setting in my oven in Poughkeepsie when I want to toast almonds and poha. !
The hot wind hit me as I stepped off the plane and onto the air stairs to the even more heat exuding coach that was waiting to ferry us into the terminal. Good thing I have a little more substance than poha or an almond, else I would surely be toast.
Fortunately the ac in the car works very well... and Mukesh remembers to spray the car for mosquitoes and cool the car down while he is waiting to pick me up.. so it is a relatively blissful journey home, until I step out of the car to enter the building and ferry myself up to the apartment. All of this takes less than the requisite 10-15 mins - so no cookie.. just irritated cookie dough.
I step into the apartment - had called ahead to ask Salyani to turn on the ac, the living room is like a blazing furnace, especially with the fan going full speed... the loose cable from which the AC switch has been dangling ever since I moved in - by the way this is typical in Delhi - why screw the thing in when you might need to unscrew it again in a few days - had decided to pop out this evening. So living room completely out of commission.
It is late so I decide to just retire to the bedroom with the nice split AC and go to sleep. Amazing - I step out of the bedroom about 30 mins later - what a difference between the cooled room and the rest of the apartment!
Thankfully, I turn in for the night......in my not stifling hot bedroom, then we lose power. Thankfully, even as I scream in frustration, the genset kicks in.. and the AC comes back on. Somewhere in the middle of the night power is restored.
And I wonder - how the folks who have no gensets, no ACs, no fans, no roofs - the ones that live on the kerb - how they must make it through each hot summer in Delhi, when I with my heavily pampered lifestyle am barely making it.
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