Of Summer, Men and Mom

Why is it not so difficult to believe that as we grow older, our stamina takes a kick. I cannot very well be what I was at 15 years? For one, I was always hungry and my mum was young. She had the stamina to feed me a gazillion times a day and still not break sweat.

It has been hot. too hot a summer in Delhi this year. The temperature even first thing in the morning hits 40 degrees Celsius something and the barometer keeps going climbing and even the evenings are not even remotely cool.

On top of that we have power-cuts, something that had become unheard of for the last many years in Delhi. Heat is all we can think of from the moment we wake up in the morning till the day ends in a bed in an air-conditioned room.

There is also the unnatural humidity. Since we are totally landlocked, so, obviously there is no cool sea breeze to save us parched souls. Therefore, I have been feeling under the weather for almost a month now. Somehow, I decided to put it to advancing years, especially after hearing kids play outside while I was feeling almost lifeless and bloated in the evening all thanks to the heat. 

This weekend was working again on Saturday. Thought will spend some quality time with folks to packed up and locked the house to be with them. But, as fate would have it, heat got the better of me and I threw-up upon waking up on Sunday morning and they were all around me trying to make me comfortable the whole day that I spent intermittently changing places between the bed and the couch.

It is on days like this that one feels worried. There is too much time to think. I rushed through a Ruskin Bond hoping to find solace in pretty stories about hill stations but, was slammed with the sad story of a selfish, neurotic and nymphomaniac Maharani who meets a tragic end.

Tired, I went back to good old Bridget Jones and was surprised that she's not changed much in the last 20-odd years and is still mad about boys at 50!

OK! Switched-on the TV and there were Carrie and pals (one of them celebrating their 50th) still gaping at men and gossiping about tight tush!

Argh! I wondered if we ever grow up? We were worried about men at 15 and looks like, it's going to continue even when we hit 50 or maybe 60.

I came back home after a frugal dinner of fish and rice after saving mum from having a meltdown because she was not able to find a bottle of 'ghee' anywhere in the kitchen. She raised an alarm and was lamenting when I found her sitting on the floor with the innards of four overflowing shelves scattered around her feet. "Who would have stolen the ghee?" She asked me with soulful eyes and a sea of hurt in her voice.

I helped her pick up and shove the stuff back into the shelves and lock them up. Both of us were soaked in sweat. Needless to say, we never found the bottle of 'ghee'.

Anyway, once home and under the 'protection' of the air-conditioner, I started thinking once more. "Is sex all that we are supposed to be worried about?" Yes, if TV and contemporary fiction is to be believed. And then think, no wonder I got a very serious guidance this week to pray that I get a good man to settle down with in life.

Good man? I wondered. And then, am I not settled enough?

That's a lot to think about. 

Wonder when I'd be by the sea again?