Nostalgic Summer

I have taken this picture from my balcony. My apartment is in the second floor. And this is my favorite spot in the house. I love to sit in the balcony and look outside. The morning cup of tea, the fresh newspaper or a novel feels good to have in this balcony. Or just sitting here looking at the hustle and bustle of the street below, the lovely green trees bestowed with yellow flowers, small blue and black colored sparrows happily swinging in and around the trees is truly a relaxing moment of the day. It is summer time here in Hyderabad. One can really feel the heat here. Temperature is around 40 degree centigrade. It is scorching hot outside. Just looking at the angry hot sky, one feels exhausted. In fact, the peak summer temperature goes to a near 45 degree. Next 8-10 weeks, it will be a torture. Hyderabad though a lovely city is literary a furnace for these two months in a year. Schools are going to close for their annual summer vacation soon. My house is somewhat tuned to the school timings here. My wife is teaching in the school where my younger boy is studying Grade VII in the same school. My daughter will be going to University in the next session. This dry heat, gulmohar flower laden trees bring in fond memories of my sweet childhood. I grew up in Rourkela.....a small town in northern Orissa. It is a colonial township built around a Steel Plant. That place also gets too hot in summer. Temperature there sometimes touches even 48 degree centigrade. I remember my school holidays in summer. After the annual exam, we used to get almost 2 months vacation before the next session. Those times, we did not have the luxury of going to any hill station or a seaside resort to spend the summer vacation. Our time was mostly spent playing around in the neighbourhood with friends. We were told by our parents not to go out in the sun and stay inside the house throughout the day time. Anyway, we children had abundant energy and used to look forward to our summer afternoons when our mothers napped after lunch. Then we used to sneak out of the house to the backyard. There were two guava trees and one mango tree. My sister, friends from neighbourhood and I used to climb the trees and play around in that heat. It was a sheer joy jumping around, climbing trees, plucking raw mangoes and playing games. Though we all did sweat with our wilted faces, we never complained, but rather enjoyed our summer afternoons. Maybe I am getting old and spoiled with good things in life like a/c in office, in car, even in the house and an awning in the balcony. Or I am experiencing global warming. As children, we never had an idea about temperature, humidity or global warming concept. Rather we had only one thing in our minds... that was to have sheer sweltering fun jumping around in the hot afternoons and playing with friends. What a good time that was !