Summer is here, and so is the discomfort.
The days are longer than they need to be,
The bugs are every where they shouldn't be,
Everything is feeding on everything,
Bees on flowers,
Birds on worms,
Strays on roadside treats,
The mind on memories.
There is something excessive about summer,
She is vulgar in her display of love,
She is gaudy in her appreciation of herself.
In every gesture she makes,
She is a mess, and she revels in it.
Summer is everything a woman can be
Once she stops worrying
About the inconvenience
She might be causing the world.
I.
They’re saying Summer is here, but
I still fear I’ll catch a cold. April’s still waiting outside the door. Nights have stolen siestas from afternoons. my eyes are still to see the amaltas bloom
II.
my room has never smelt more of me before, and my cotton kurtas more of my wardrobe. my bookshelves have been cleaned for the umpteenth time today. umpteenth video calls made in between. it’s a Summer after all
some stories would need to be told.
III.
5 year old me, sixteen, twenty three,
didn’t know, a spring would die
un- romanticised so that a summer could live aloof.
In summer mornings, mists have fewer options.
The still doom in the trees stops its swirling,
and light balances precariously on the leaves.
The birds know it's airy enough to see
the blue skies as easels for random strokes.
It's too early for heat to claim hegemony,
but murmurs abound amongst bees
as they gossip about nectar with flowers.
That's the calm before the hard sun.
The afternoons show no mercy.
All truths are revealed,
and there is an unprovoked assault on good men -
summer forces out truths, to the dismay
of those unaccustomed to mirrors.
It is hot and sticky,
nobody can hold anything inside,
the clothes are thin,
and the heat in the body seeks release.
There is something about the steely fire in the air,
which erupts into tales of helpless lust,
and street corners and dark rooms,
neighbors and countries, loose control.
Crimes of passion abound.
Summer noons are desperate for evenings.
The day sidles into its softest avatar.
Children pour out like emotions in a protest march.
The parks are filled with the kindest sounds -
a girl laughing with a friend,
a boy calling out for a pass.
The roads fill, and the trams trundle slowly,
a man presses against a woman,
and she just let's him:
there is something about being human
and letting small indiscretions be.
The day trudges its way through
drudgery and magic,
tired souls passing through skies
playing an orchestra with colors.
Summers are always mercurial,
and even as the days end unreconciled,
there is music and noise
which keep the world aroused
deep into the night.
There is a balancing which somehow
brings nature and man into
a criminal reconciliation.
We all become creatures of a season.
for the longestÂ
lonely days, I have
sustained a melody
that keeps ringing
in the sky;
a thought has bubbled
in the corner of my
mouth, and the words
drool off in the
middle of a night.
the summerÂ
remembers myÂ
memory, somewhere
lost behind my
senses,
and I wonder
what the truth
might be,
but I may
have spoken theÂ
truth in myÂ
sleep.
I’ll remember it as the summer of death.
The news so overwhelmingly real
One could almost smell death
Through the screen.
I’ll remember the countless evenings
Spent alone on my balcony.
The stillness outside,
The turbulence within.
I’ll remember the unsung heroes,
Leaving their families and lovers
So we can live another day
With ours.
I’ll remember the fear and loneliness
The coming undone,
The piecing back.
I’ll remember it as the summer of death,
When humanity came alive.
-Raj
Bougainvillea
Cascading pink and white
Papadums
Homemade papadums
Laid out on the terrace to dry.
Prickly heat, matka-cool water
and scorching bright light.
Afternoons
When we tiptoed to play
Chorpolice, pandi, saklitooli.
Until we lay panting under the
Lacy shade of the tamarind tree.
While back in the colony under
Fans kirkirring away
Paatis and tataas drunk
With the heat, snoring gently
Gripped under the siesta's sway.
Cotton sarees
Soaked underarms
Rivulets of sweat
running down.
Golas, dry taps and water
stored in drums.
Sucking mangoes,
gnawing at the stone
Lazing flies, stray dogs alone.
The white hot sun
Breathless nights that
leave you wrung.
Summers in India
Are parched, unforgiving.
Waiting endlessly for
the first sign of rain
Until it comes.
Then we'll romanticize
Something else again.
