Jargogled Impressions.

“Great is the sun, and wide he goes / Through empty heaven with repose.” Summer Sun by Robert Louis Stevenson

Where I grew up, summers weren’t really a thing. It was mostly a season one had to endure. The simmering temperatures meant we stayed mostly indoors, save for when something needed done and we were stuck with playing board games like Monopoly, video games, etc. or indoor cricket till the strength of the afternoon sun subsided. That gave us few hours in the evening before the sun set to play outdoors, usually cricket, but often badminton. Summers usually were tied to summer holidays and temperatures stayed within limits that did not bother us all that much save for some nights that ended up in us sleeping on the terrace, especially when the utility systems overheated leading to load shedding and no power for extended periods of time.  My father ran a pharmacy shop, focusing on pediatric medical needs, that thrived during the summers. Kids apparently were sick more often due to the sweltering heat. But what this meant was the space in front of our house was usually packed with patients and their families clamoring for attention, striving to keep themselves cooled down. This also meant a busier time for my father and a season when he needed help from us to manage the volumes. The most vivid memories I have of summertime in Giridih is of biking to my not-in-session school to prepare for a musical performance with 20 or so of my classmates. I remember pedaling hard in the scorching sun, as I made my way to the school, which was about 2.5 miles from home, and with an annoying classmate in tow, wondering why and how I got stuck with being part of this performance. Of all the memories I would have wanted to retain, it’s funny that I retained this one the most.

Then, when I moved to Kota in Rajasthan for my studies, summer temperatures soared to levels I had never experienced before. Even the street pigs in Kota registered the heat of the summer season, resorting noisily and messily to splashing around in open sewers and puddles of dirt water, wherever they could find one. The temperatures were inhumane in many aspects, especially so because the concept of air-conditioning was restricted to classrooms, and even renting coolers was too expensive. What this meant was sprinkling water all over the mattresses we slept in to keep them cool and enable us to get some sleep over the torrid nights. The loaner bicycle I had from the landlord was an antique and after a few hours in the sun it was a pleasure untold to pedal it back and forth between my PG room and the tuition classes. The coaching center I had enrolled in had scaled massively resulting in shortage of classrooms and the administration had resorted to booking the local school classrooms for the students. The Instrumentation Limited Sr. Secondary School was in fact my senior high school, but I never went there for schooling except a few labs works that needed attendance. Most of our time was spent instead going through the curriculum that the coaching center had laid down for us. In any case, the makeshift classrooms in the school were a trek in and of itself that passed through dry urban forest land populated with wild peacocks. I can still recall the loud, high-pitched, and shrill peacock screams that reverberated through the roads that we took for attending those classes.  

Summers in Kharagpur were an ordeal not unlike Kota, only the dry climate was swapped with humidity the likes of which I had not sweated before. The summer I spent staying back in college dorms due to the work needed for organizing the college festival was an experience in itself. That summer was so bad that I started smoking, literally, although I continue to blame a close friend who squatted in my hostel room all throughout the summer and exposed me to the second-hand smoke that led me down the hellhole.

I spent one summer in Gurgaon owing to the one year I spent in the city at my first job outside college. Delhi summers are much talked about, much as dilli ki sardi is. Thankfully, the paychecks helped with finding us the path to the movie theatre(s), or the mall/bar combo, or the pre-installed a/c in the rental 2br apartment I shared with 3 other friends/colleagues. Then, when I moved to Mumbai, the summers toned down to reasonable levels. In the latter part of my stay in Mumbai, I used to commute to my office in Vikhroli via the Central local train which meant catching the local from Dadar station. If you are familiar with Mumbai, you may have heard of its local trains. And Dadar station is the OG of local train stations complete with massive foot traffic, host of vendors hawking different types of ware and more famously the flower market that buzzes with an intensely hot aroma during the peak of summers. I often also frequented the western line locals from Matunga station which I navigated through a winding narrow bridge that led me from Mahim to Matunga. Built of steel and rusty iron, the bridge took a shape of its own during summers as the hot metal made for a tricky passage through during peak traffic.

When living in Manhattan and Philadelphia, where four seasons are as sharply defined as it can be, the summers presented a vividly contrasting picture compared to the frigid cold the cities witnessed. Walking for miles on the grid-like streets during summers was an experience that remains etched in my memory – the clear skies penetrated by the blazing glaze of the summer sun was unlike any I had seen before. The city’s vibe wasn’t much different across the seasons though. Even as seasonal activities differed, the denizens of the city across the parts filed in and out of the streets braving the weather and all it brought forth.

In Seattle though, where seasons are primarily broken into rain and no rain for the most parts, summers are a different breed altogether. It was this city that brought me the realization of why poets deemed summer as the most glorious of seasons, why summers are heralded as harbingers of joy and of a lightness that demands attention. When the rainy and damp and often depressing cold vanishes slowly through spurts of golden sunshine, the city starts to awaken. When the temperatures start climbing north, the city kickstarts itself into a different gear. The fauna and the neighborhoods take on a color and an aroma that is engrossing. The distant mountain ranges to the west (Olympic), east (cascades), and south (rainier) stays covered in snow for the first part of the summer and on clear days they tower above the city casting its magnificence in every corner and turn of the streets. As you drive down and soak in the re-invigorated trees (oaks, cedars, redwoods, pines, etc.) the city makes me feel like closest to the perfect city one can live in.

But all things that are good must come to an end. The fabric of nature is to repeat itself, and in cycles. And in these contrasting seasons lie hidden the yin and yang of the city.