Summer content

Delhi in summer is cruel. Delhi in summer is temperamental.  And regal.  And so elemental!

That’s when you see what makes Delhi the city of fables, the city of lost maharajas and found empires.

Delhi summer kills the unprepared spirit. It keeps alive climate-control and related issues. It melts the city streets and freezes, almost, all cultural activity (even art exhibitions, which, can be argued, are indoors – but people have to travel to get to).

And Delhi in summer is abuzz – with conversations, deeply-felt, sometimes Platonic, dialogues on water usage, power distribution efficiency, and yes, houseflies too.

In summer, the city throws off its veneer of flowers and winter, and shines forth in its true form – hot, unpredictable like a shrew, showing a bright new face every day.

Note, March is still dragging its feet and midday is already Arabia-white.

Anita Desai describes the March-Delhi thus: “…Bamboo screens hanging by strings from the rafters had been lowered and attached to the railing to prevent them from being blown out into the street by the gusts of March wind, but all the same, there was a great deal of litter blowing around in restless eddies.”

Indeed, the March wind is a worthy preface to the unabridged volley of seething days to follow, an epic that must be seen in its fullness year after year, to reach the first step of understanding it.

But I insist, summer is what gives Delhi its character. Forget the heat, don’t fuss about the mercury (in the shade, in the sun, at midnight, and whenever else CNN feels it’s a good time to whip it out and then sweat it down our TV screens), try to detach yourself from the almost gale-force afternoon loo winds, and watch the city itself.

How Delhi-zens court bonhomie through casual interactions with complete strangers just by exchanging the greeting, “Gosh, it’s so hot!”, accompanied by rolling eyes and shaking head or some other appropriate gesture of heat and dust.

Suddenly political leaders (and Delhi is thick with political leaders, big and small) are discussing (sometimes even executing) green initiatives, ‘climate control measures’ and all manner of appeasement of weather gods. It’s amusing… to begin with; at some point, it turns heart rending!

I’m told, this season, high on their to-do lists (yes, they do have such like) is how to coax the Atlantic and its fleet of currents to inch closer to our Bay of Bengal with its untamed monsoon devils that play hard to get up until July, sometimes even later.

And a friend shared a friend’s Facebook status that said he (friend’s friend) was collaborating with Arctic fauna guys to import penguins (all-inclusive deal with their Arctic flora and ice-boxes).  Now… THAT is the true Delhi spirit of entrepreneurial intrepidity – go bravely forth where no one – angel, or any other winged form – has tread before!

And who do you think loves these crazy-minded summers best? Why, the school children and ice cream vendors, of course!

These two have established telepathic lines of communication, and at school closing hour, they magically materialize on street corners. What ensues is confusion, high chatter spiked with excited peals of laughter, and a brood of happy-faced kids and a temporarily shaken vendor dreaming of an ice cream parlor on MG Road. And how we love to believe in the power of dreams!

Economic theories are repackaged every afternoon;  odes to written to market forces driven by eight-year-olds; ice cream vendors mint their season’s millions in cones and cups.

Water melon and coconut sellers, humble nimbu pani retailers all shore up their sagging bottom lines during this time. These are the people who count on the high-browning sun, savage dust-shrouded winds and the slow afternoon traffic. These are the faceless nameless persons who migrate from the interiors of the country to make their ‘fortunes’ in summertime Delhi. They don’t mind the vaporizing sidewalks and the dizzying days that blow hot and hotter all the way until 9 pm.

Travel sites discourage the eager beaver tourist to visit Delhi during summer. There is another way of looking at it: if you don’t see Delhi in summer, (oh, by all means, bring along your pet penguin and your personal ice-float, and all your mineral waters to keep you cool and malaria-free) you have missed seeing the real Delhi; the city conquerors have broken their hearts over, through the centuries.