Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Who Annoyed the Sun?

Warning: This post is basically one long crib fest

Bombay weather has never been one which you can sing praises about. We suffer from bad to horrible weather most times of the year except for a few random weeks in the fag end of December when it cools down enough to be pleasant. Other than that, we complain (and rightly so) about sticky, humid, sweaty summers and other non-monsoon months (when train compartments become furnaces and you feel like you’re being roasted) and we whine and crib about the rains and floods during monsoon season which can last for up to 4 months (when nothing dries and everything and everyone smell musty).

But the last week or so beats it all (at least for this year). Never has October been so utterly and totally unbearable. It’s impossible to step out in the day time unless you’re insulated by air conditioning and even then it isn’t really effective. Everyone seems to be melting in to a puddle of sweat. Everywhere you go people are fanning themselves in an attempt to find some relief but it’s futile since you end up fanning hot air. The local transport system has become close to torture given that everyone is sweating like pigs while being jostled together and packed like sardines in small spaces.

You can’t think of running any errands even at 10 in the morning (even if the shops were open) because the sun is beating down mercilessly upon all that it can reach. But even in extreme cases where you absolutely have to step out of your cool room, you realise it is worse than you imagined. Along with the hot enough to fry an egg on the road sun there is a total absence of any relief providing breeze. Not a leaf stirs and not a tree sways. It’s like the sun killed the wind with its super heat or something.

It’s absolutely impossible to wear makeup unless you want it running all over your face with your perspiration or you want to look like a made-up monkey what with the flushed and heated skin you sport all day long. And talk of having to cook in this heat? It sincerely makes you wish for cold fire or better yet a heat reduction knob for the sun.

So what I’m saying here is that Bombay may be no Rajasthan and we definitely don’t experience the extremes of weather here. But when I say it is hot it sure as hell is hot (like hell if one has to use the analogy…after all it does bring out the worst in people doesn't it?)

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