Life, Lilies and Surf

Chapter 15

"Who can tell what a baby thinks?

Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the mannikin  feels his way

Out from the shore of the great unknown,

Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day ?"

J. G. Holland,    Bitter Sweet: First Movement  - The Question Stated.

"There does a sable cloud

Turn forth her silver lining on the night"

         Milton,  Comus, lines 223,224

"Hamlet:  Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

Polonius:  By the mass and 't is like a camel, indeed."

        Shakespeare,  Hamlet,  iii,2

Winter was fast approaching .  In Delhi,  winter is the most enjoyable period of the year.  The month of September ushers in pleasant weather after rains in August, a month of humidity and lack of breeze.  The rains in Delhi do not bring cool air like the coastal areas. It would be raining heavily and constantly.  The dark clouds of the monsoon would be rising and moving from one end of the sky to the other.  Looking at the sky and watching the grand scenario of clouds of different shapes moving across the firmament is an enthralling  experience, if one has the taste to appreciate the glamour of nature.  You can see clouds appearing like big animals like elephant or buffalo.  These spongy figures will float and move in the sky from one direction to another.  Few times they do so without getting disintegrated and loosing their limbs and shapes.  The poor cloud elephant will loose its trunk or leg and pitiably quartered when the wind Lord chooses to blow his whistle.  You can also decipher cloud forms like rabbit, squirrel or a giant face with bristling hair.  Some amount of imagination is necessary to discern  these shapes in sky created by dark and white clouds.  During fully rainy days these spectacles will not be found except before onset rain or in the evening setting sun, when the rains had stopped. The spectacle will be more breath taking with fantastic colours at the sunset time, if you are in a hill station like Shimla or Mussoorie during the season of rains.

But the weather in August in Delhi will be oppressive.  Water cooler fed on water and sending strong and continuous blast of cool air from the fan of the cooler would no more be useful, as it would only increase the already high humidity.  Only when the ambient humidity is 20 per cent or lower and the sun is blazing with temperatures reaching to hundred and above, the water coolers would be used in dry weather days in Delhi.  The minute water vapour charged air from the water cooler would bring down the dry as bone heat of April and  May and give an enjoyable pleasant breeze.  It will be like sitting on the shores of broad river in the hot summer months and enjoying the cool breeze blowing over the river. That is what, I understand a Tamil saint sang when he was thrown into a boiling calcium cauldron.  The story goes that thanks to the protection of Lord Shiva of whom he was a great devotee, the boiling cauldron did not harm him.  Instead, he felt that he was on the shore of a big lake from which salubrious breeze was blowing towards him along with the accompaniment of melodious tunes of veena with bees humming in the background and the moon raising to top it all.

But by September the monsoon would depart saying good bye to the lakes it had filled up, and trees and plants and gardens that it had nourished.  The sky would become clear with out any pollution. There was not much pollution in Delhi air in those days, either really or euphemistically.  September was ushering pleasant weather as prelude to approaching winter.  Navrathri would come and people would start wearing half sleeve sweaters and full sleeve shirts.