There was a time...not long ago

HUMOUR: SWALPA CONNECT MADI...
There was a time...not long ago
Deccan Herald


There was a time when the whole of India would swelter and groan under the punishing eye of the summer sun. And us Bangaloreans would preen at the crispness of our dawns, in the breeziness of our afternoons and the chill of our evenings. And gloat about our naturally air-conditioned climate as if we had created it ourselves.

There was a time when summer meant the smell of mango ripening on trees and the piercing call of the koel on slow afternoons.

There was a time when the red streaked sky of dusk was alive with the long distance sound of children on vacation playing ‘galli’ cricket. And the cry if the tadgola vendor straight off the Madras Mail and the taste of heaven dribbling down in sweet juice on your chin.

There was time when the long length of Dickenson Road was aflame with gulmohar flowers. And St Marks Road pavements covered with the crisp softness of fallen jacaranda ..in a lavish abundance that only nature knows how to squander without a thought to tomorrow.

There was a time when sprawled colonial bungalows had old trees on which you could sling a rope swing and settle on a pillow to amble the afternoon away in a book while assorted birds chirruped overhead and squirrels came down to investigate your motives.

There was a time when old Bangaloreans showed off their high ceiling tiled roofs and boasted about how they never thought to put in those noisy contraptions called fans.

There was a time when you could whizz home for lunch, grab twenty minutes of refreshing shut-eye and be back in the office with a bounce in your step and a sparkle in your brain.

There was a time when everyone and his three children, dog and senile aunt make plans to descend on poor unsuspecting niece in summers - enroute Ooty. But only after a long month of family gossip, idle talk, hugs, enormous meals, servant tantrums, rowdy children, nostalgia and blatant envy. You are so lucky to live here... etc etc .

The other day I asked my family who survive in Hyderabad at 40 Deg C to drive down to Bangalore for a month. “ Are you joking”, they said “Bangalore is just as hot and you have those Goddawful powercuts,…and your traffic.! Besides your monstrous cannibal mosquitoes will eat us up alive.”

And I recalled a time not so far away when I had to seriously sit down in February and write a spate of very diplomatic letters to every second and third cousin twice removed who wanted to come to us for summers and had sent some very tentative feelers about our summer programme.

And I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

There was a time I used to dread the summers. I still do. But for a different set of reasons.