Mountain of light

The summer is on us and it is time to stock up on the fluids and borough in during the day. The summers seem to be getting longer and more stronger every year or is it because my body is just getting run down and I can't take extremes as well as I used to. Growing up, I remember that acclimatizing myself, especially in the summers, was a very big deal for me. I used to make it a point to sleep without a fan for days together, to the horror of my family. I used to put myself through such hardships during the summer that you would think that I was preparing myself for a stint at some concentration camp! My father once told me "first deserve and then desire". Ok he told me that more than once and I kind of took it too literally. I said to myself , that I can't afford a desert cooler and I certainly can't afford an air conditioner and so then I can't be spoiling myself and developing habits that I couldn't support. This was ofcourse applicable to the cooling systems only! Even after getting my first job I never invested in a desert cooler, because by that time acclimatizing was pretty big with me and I didn't think there was any point in climate control in my room. I had to be one with nature and not run away from it. Those were hot summer nights.

Over the past few years I have come a long way from that state of affairs. I made do with a cooler for two years and this year it’s an air conditioner. The very sight of that air conditioner is an imposing sight in my room. It’s like a stranger in my room and I almost feel guilty turning it on. Climate control still rubs me up the wrong way and I hope that my body still retains some kind of conditioning to the heat outside. I have never wanted a Switzerland in my room, never wanted oxygen filling up my room or whatever those air-conditioning companies say to sell their wares. I am still not sure if investing in an air conditioner was the right decision, it’s pretty much been the first out and out luxury item I have ever gone for. I just think it’s terrible to be boarding up my doors and windows to keep the cool air in, this just leads to us getting used to exclusivity. This is how ivory towers are cooled aren't they? If our country is about heat and dust then its time we cleaned up and planted more trees to help bring the temperature down. Air conditioners and similar items to me reflect the gap between the haves and the have nots. It’s probably in a way ironic, that one side of the air conditioner throws cold air while the other side lets out a hot blast. Wonder what it takes for a have not to cross over from the hot side to the cold side?

Staying on this topic, I am quite fascinated by some of the air conditioner ads. There was one which had come out last year about turning the air conditioner on and going to Switzerland. Wonder why the company was talking about Switzerland when the Himalayas are so close to us and the Everest is just a few hours away by air. They've been talking about the benefits of nano technology in air conditioners and other white goods and I'll be interested to see how this hybrid air conditioners work. Nano technology promises much smaller devices to replace the big compressors and they will also be more energy efficient.

To cooler times...

Just a day after Christmas came the bone chilling news of an earthquake at 9.0 at the Richter scale and of a tsunami. A tsunami to me has always been stuff movies have been made out of and always happened to countries in the Pacific Rim. The sea to me has always been this placid, calm body of water. I was infact dipping my feet in the Indian Ocean just a week before and wondering at its warmth and placidity. The fact that the Ocean could spurt up some seriously high waves has left me astounded. Some of the places which got hit are tourist hotspots and it being the tourist season my heart goes out for the tourists and also the small time businessmen who live for the tourist season. The tsunami also brought back memories of some of the affected places that I have visited before.

Phuket, Thailand –

Sometime ago, a two hour airplane journey from Bangkok brought me to Phuket. At that time it was a small little airport with one terminal serving both for departure and arrival. It is much bigger now as I hear. The most popular beach is the Patong beach. Phuket is in so many ways like Goa with its hills on one side and beach on the other, with it peaceful nooks and party places. There are lots of nooks and corners in the beach which become accessible during low tide. In the evenings, the restaurants on the sea front serve the catch of the day in those wonderful oriental sauces. In the mornings the tourists sit on the beach while the shacks serve up breakfasts as everyone gets ready for a lazy day by the sea. Among my memories of Phuket is how the sky had once turned dark grey and almost as if in response the sea had turned dark green. It is in the morning when the tsunami had struck and apparently a lot of tourists were caught unaware. I would be if I would have been there. Tourism here, as it is all over Thailand, is very well organized and it is to their credit that even after such a huge tragedy, hotels are looking to retain their customers. To me what was the most wonderful part of Phuket was that as I looked out into the sea, I was looking into the Andamans. India was not too far away by boat and here I was so near India and yet almost in another world.

Galle, Sri Lanka.

A few hours of the most scenic bus ride of my life from Colombo brought me to Galle which is in the southern most part of Sri Lanka. The ride is along the western coast of Sri Lanka and the highway runs very close to the sea and you never lose sight of the sea for more than a few minutes. The highway is very narrow and all along the journey there are these villages and then also some big towns. Even though the distance if I remember correctly is only about 100kms, it took us about 3 hours to reach Galle from Colombo. All along the Indian Ocean is placid, quiet and its waves lazily lap up into the coast. The chief attraction in Galle, apart from the small beach, is the 17th century Dutch fort with the high imposing walls. The reports talk about how the tsunami waves were so strong that they enveloped the fort walls and met up behind them where there is a big bus shelter and the buses were tossed all around with the passengers inside them. This is not the Galle my memory recollects. Even though I was there just for a day, I remember a town where time had a taken a break and things moved at their own pace. The perfect place for a holiday, with its mix of beauty and history.

I grimace as I write this post as I think about the people whose lives have been changed forever with this disaster. People who lived simple lives, who believed in nature and what nature provided them, people who lived by the sea and who depended on it for their livelihood. One almost feels like saying that the people who died were more fortunate than the survivors left behind. I say almost, because I can’t bring myself to denigrate the gift of life in front of anything.

I sincerely hope for their sake and for ours that they get the opportunity to lead the rest of their lives in dignity and grace.