Fry in the Summer

Though this lousy summer is still a little far on the calendar, I feel this damn summer is already here in Bangalore. It has arrived early—like an uninvited guest who refuses to take off their shoes. This year, unlike last year, the weather has become much hotter. Last year, it drizzled at this time. Gentle rain. Cool breezes. Hope. This year? Nothing. Just heat. Dry, miserable, soul-sucking heat. And everybody's talking about how lousy the weather has become. It surely is! Damn this global warming. Damn it straight to a cooler place. Last week, there were two holidays. On Tuesday, it was Holi. On Friday, it was Good Friday. And you bet it—they were goddamned holidays. Not because holidays are bad. But because I never celebrated either of them. They were lousy holidays spent on my lousy bed in my lousy room. Sitting on that bed, I tried to engage myself as much as possible in my own activities. The problem was, I didn't know what those activities were. So I did what any sane person would do: I opened the internet. Then I closed the damned laptop. Then I opened it again. Then I flipped through pages that were lying scattered next to my bed—uselessly, like a confused penguin. I read some phony writings. I walked to and fro in my room like a caged tiger. I wrote something bullshit (and when I write, I type on my keyboards—plural, because I have two and use neither). I opened the refrigerator and drank a cold drop of water. Just one drop. The rest was too warm. I visited the toilet. Came back to my lousy bed. Then did it all over again. Goddamned it. I felt I was inside a cell. I did. Then I thought: I need to do something. So I gave myself a long walk. In the sweaty, blistering sun. Brilliant idea. Outside, children were playing cricket. Running. Shouting. Sweating. Enjoying themselves. It really killed me. How could those little craps bear the heat of the sun? They have no sweat glands? No sense of self-preservation? Are they secretly lizards? I walked to a shop to read the temperature. The number on the wall flickered. It was 31. Not so bad, I heard. New Delhi had just reached half boiling point. Some other parts of the world were even worse. I don't know how people live in those blistering places. The thought of it killed me. It did. Right there. Next to the shop selling cold drinks I couldn't afford. The room has been sweltering like anything. The fan's blades cannot be seen when they move—they become a ghostly blur of disappointment. So you look for a cool shower. You imagine it. You dream of it. Cold water. Relief. Salvation. But the shower is not as cool as you expected. The heated warm water drizzles out heavily. Bet me. The warmness is enough to make you sweat more than before you entered. You step out dirtier than you went in. God, I hate that. I hate that with the heat of a thousand suns—which, ironically, is the problem. By evening, mosquitoes dance all around like they own the place. I don't know where they come from. I close every goddamn tiny hole. I seal windows. I block doors. I stuff socks into gaps I didn't know existed. Do they come from the sink's hole? The drain? The neighbor's soul? I use coils. Sprays. Creams. Electric bats. Ancient curses. Nothing works. They always loiter around, hunting for prey—and I am their buffet. They literally kill my sleep. Night after night. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Right next to my ear. That sound. That evil, high-pitched, demonic sound. One day, I woke up in the morning and saw three mosquitoes sleeping next to me. Permanently dead. Their tiny bodies were filled with red blood. My blood. I nearly puked. It killed me. I meant it. So here I am. Hot. Tired. Mosquito-bitten. Waiting for winter in a city that forgot what winter means. Damn summer. Damn Bangalore. And damn those three little vampires who died happy.