CLOUDY DAYS ARE HAPPY DAYS !
HOUSE WARMING IS PASSE; IT IS HOUSE CHILLING !
There is a painting in my elder daughter’s room which
states: “I have got sunshine on a cloudy day”. I have always thought
how we in Southern India got to believe that kind of a statement and repeat it in our
daily conversations and writings. Largely it is a western thought as they live
in a cold and wet weather condition most part of the year. So they jump up in
joy when sun shines through ! Even when it shines say in Europe it is for brief
periods and hence the excitement. In southern India there being no winter worth
calling ‘winter’ and the sun god bearing down, accompanied by the goddess of humidity
working full time, sunshine is ( for me surely) a bodily terrible thing and spiritually
so taxing that on a bright Sunday morning I feel closed curtains and goggles is the way I wish to stay even at home
Thus, having been born in Keralam I always looked forward to
onset of South West Monsoon and the seemingly endless downpour. At the peak of
those rainy days there would be a couple of weeks when it gets pitch dark at even noon
time when the sun would be lost completely to blue-grey rain laden clouds. That is
lovely and almost like paradise. A bucket-to-one-drop kind of blessing from
above !
As a young school going boy, I always regretted the passing
of Monsoon and the arrival of blazing sun until North East Monsoon. However
this second monsoon is always for lightening fireworks and thunder like hydrogen bombs
going off, with a few coconut trees catching fire and burning like some north
Indian Diwali madness. The much sought after dark days are there, surely, but not to
my satisfaction. Complete darkness at noon where one can light a few candles
and have candle light lunch is reserved for for the glorious south-west-monsoon.
During summer which is 90 % of the year in my beloved Keralam,
the sun is so bright that even the setting sun can tan ones skin and bring down
rivulets of perspiration from head to toe. A self-administered shower, at the
family well, by drawing bucketfuls of water by rope and pulley and poring down
on one’s head generally cooled one’s body a little bit for about quarter of an
hour. With such sunshine, on non-cloudy days I usually prayed at night for
torrential rain; and sometimes when my prayers went unanswered, I gave in to
fantasy and told myself that the ceiling fan's swish was light rain in progress
and heavy downpour was on its way. However the pitter-patter of heavy rain
drops on my ancestral home’s Mangalore tiled roof would be missing and such
disappointments were enough to send one into a half-coma like sleep. AND THEN,
the cruel sun would come up on the horizon oozing blood and orange juice and
one would get fed up of sleep and rise and grumble for another blindingly bright and
sweaty day ! Sunshine ? No thanks ! A dark and cloudy day any time. If goddess
of rain pleases to bless by torrential rain, then so much the better.Bangalore days, after retirement is not as good, but is manageable, with lots of lightly cloudy days, with or without light showers that last for a maximum of half hour.
After Keralam, life shifted to Assam in the north east.
Finally one could experience ‘winter’. Not severe but quite cold for a south
Indian. Summer was hot but humidity was within decent levels; greenery all over, just like Keralam but no coconut trees and many trees and shrubs known to one
were missing. Flowers -- chrysanthemums,Roses, Marigolds and many others
bloomed in sizes unseen in Keralam. They were huge in sizes and even deeper in
their colours, but with less fragrance.Curry leaves grew wild and were the size of tea leaves almost,
but one had to use triple the quantity of Kerala variety in curries to get some
aroma. Most importantly, SUN behaved itself during winter and clouds and
frequent rains beat ‘him’ and made ‘him’ behave. Even summer did not allow sun to horrify God's people on earth.
Bombay appeared in life next.Or I appeared in Mumbai. Humidity always hits the nineties.
Some happy dark days were there. Floods and general disruption of daily routine
was on the mind during monsoon. On other days sun doused my joy de vivre. Sometimes
one wished why nobody invented a huge goggle to fix in top of the city so that the nasty sun would look like the comedian Mahmood in old Bollywood movies from morning till sunset….fantasy caused by very bright sunlight !!
Then life shifted to New Delhi. New or old Delhi, the sun
roasted one and all. Poor street vendors and general public particularly. Humidity being too
low, the dry heat and dry wind laden with sand from the Thar desert sucked the
blood out of every one. Though winter gave the residents another wallop. with bitterly cold
and wind but one felt good in one way that
the sun’s criminal behavior was not to be suffered for some months. Dark winter
mornings, early nightfall and woollies made one feel the temporary win against the SUN.
Welcome to Yemen....on the RED SEA. Mild hospitable people mild mannered Arabs.. Quite green, but not like Assam nor Keralam. All their vegetables and Qath ( for chewing to get a high) are locally grown. Very few big trees; fairly fertile. Mostly shrubs on roadsides. Taiz is at an altitude of 3600 ft above sea level. Salubrious climate. Houses do not need even fans. Capital Sanaa is 8000 ft. Sun dare not blaze down on Yemen. Rains are often, but light and short.Never any Dark days but plenty of Grey days. One can make do with that.
Finally to the Gulf…Dubai; twenty three years; Desert; the sun ruled in that
region like a merciless and murferous devil; thirst; cataract in early age; changing of sweat-soaked dresses twice a
day ( or thrice, sometimes). Air conditioners everywhere including in covered bus
stops. Light winter from November till end February gave some respite from the terrible sun which punishes
both rich and poor alike. Temperatures hit 50 degree Celsius often in summer;
construction workers suffered most the heartless sun’s fury; many fainted on daily
basis. The authorities experimented cloud seeding in summer. In my experience
all it produced was a glorious dark noon ( that was paradise) for a few hours
and just one thunder and a few table spoons of rain. For a fan of darkness
throughout the day for a few weeks continuously,that was like someone waking
me up at midnight to hear: “ there is no supper tonight, so go back to sleep”.
So when my daughter comes back in a few months from Japan I am
planning to put up a painting which will say: “ I HAVE GOT A PITCH DARK CLOUDY
DAY ( THANK GOD) ON AN OTHERWISE CRUELLY BRIGHT SUNNY DAY”. Instead of an
orange-yellow blob on top my painting I will have a grey blob with black patches
inside it... and my smiling face too.
While on the subject of hot bright sun versus dark cold
rainy days ( or just cloudy overcast days), I must also say that in most parts
of India, and definitely in Keralam, one must not invite people for their HOUSE
WARMING…instead, it is appropriate to say: ‘HOUSE COOLING”.... . WHY WARM a place
which is already hot humid and horrible ? House warming is for Europe and other
regions.
Wish you a very dark or grey,comfortable, cool and cloudy day.
