Yeah, summer in Mumbai is back with temperature peaking like never before and so is
the compulsive habit of everyone fuming and fretting in unison over it. It is that time of the year when every
conversation; even the brief one with perfect strangers is incomplete without
mentioning how worst is yet to come from the dreadful months ahead. Like a true
Mumbaikar, I too am obsessed with the heat and humidity and freak every time I need to go out.
Interestingly, Nature has subtly changed around me and I am ashamed to admit that I am guilty of not having noticed the beautiful change, till a leisurely walk in my terrace last evening. The reminder of summer blooms from the garden brought a pleasant surprise! Mangoes, jack fruits, badams, tender coconuts are flourishing on every branch and the sight is sheer delight. The evening walks on the terrace are going to be great fun with fragrance of Mango flowers bursting and tempting me to pluck raw Mangoes that are so easily reachable from the terrace.
About few days from now, the gardener would knock at our door every week and deliver fresh, tender coconuts, neatly cut jack fruits, badams and mangoes. It is our summer party time that lasts the whole season and wins me some brownie points from family and friends for sending them home grown fresh fruits J
I sometimes miss the simplicity of life that went by. Unlike the childhood, now summer is perceived in completely different way. The hype around summer precedes the scorching heat declaring arrival of the season. Suddenly, everything around is buzzing with summer camps, summer holidays, summer special hobbies, summer fashion, summer jobs, summer workouts, summer diets and endless blah around it!
For me, summer was/still is about loads of fun and frolic, holidays, doing so many things that I don't get to do leisurely or/and doing absolutely nothing and be lazy. Summer means family gatherings with more of life and living than doing. Summer means life less complicated, spending the season without being spent. Summer for me means quenching thirst with cold water from earthen pot, having endless glasses of lemon water, lassi, sherbat and Aam- Panha freshly made at home. Summer for me means, watching kids lust for ice slush/ice cream, playing endlessly, enjoying life at languid pace without having to worry about homework and study.
Summer for me means, being completely at peace on a hot afternoon in cool environs of Vetiver roots curtains (no air-conditioners can match this experience!), immersed with heady concoction of fragrance of fresh blooms of Jasmine and Mogra flowers from the garden.
Yeah, summer is back with its cruel, scorching heat but there is lot to bask in this harsh season. The palette of the season has changed the canvas that brings new energy, force, vigour in form of bright colours strewn everywhere and little piece of heaven wafts through in splash of colours bringing a welcome respite! There is lot to learn, enjoy, live if I just stop cribbing about the heat and focus on sheer delights of its rugged beauty.
"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night: to be elated over a bird's nest or a wild flower in spring... these are some of the rewards of the simple life." (John Burroughs)
