BETTER BURRR OR BURN?

You like being blinded by the fog or getting soaked in sweat in the scorching heat? Or stepping into a muddy ditch after a heavy pour (quite an exaggeration in the rain deprived Delhi)? I have stayed here for 17 years now and this experience gives me the authority to comment on its weather conditions (unlike climate warrior RK Pachauri’s glacier gaffe!)
I need time to rummage in my memory to talk about nip in the air or dripping sweat during my schooldays (or heydays?), so let me easily start with the weather report in today’s foggy times.
I don’t need a newspaper to stun myself with the dipping temperature record, the layer of clothes I need and the amount of fog I see each time I breathe are determinants enough (loosely) to estimate the burrr-ing intensity. Besides, the controlled cab speed and unending hours spent in the cab while being escorted back home pile up more proofs.
And thanks to this, one of my chums had to spend time in office recently… well... by working until the crack of a ‘clear-sky’ morning!
Falling maximum temperature year after year in autumn and the rising mercury level during summers, 2009-10 saw breaking of past records.

I need no statistics to confirm this change, I am a witness. Here’s little what I recall…

Cold breeze used to pierce through our lightly padded blazers, through cotton uniforms, and even through our skin and make us shiver while waiting to board the school bus early in the morning. No doubt then that the attendance used to take a plunge down during winters more than summers, in the wake of soaring body temperatures!
Hiding in this matter-of-factly situation is another reality: Who wanted to leave the cozy quilt?
Sometimes, early to reach school (just to accompany my study-struck brother), I remember watching the foggy and soggy (due to mist) school Football ground.
It appeared to me as if an artist has given a grey and white gradient effect over the green grass!
Coming to the sweaty season. One does not have a reason for not getting up early, as the sun rays piercing through your window made us rub our eyes in a delayed shock, in case we were late to school!
Till the time we were within the school premises, in the classroom to be precise (who wanted to play outdoors?), it was tolerable. Albeit, lectures without ACs (or coolers, to sound reasonable) was kind of inhumane! Obviously, teachers used to get irritated due to constant call from someone or the other to fill one’s water bottle and then apparently attend to the nature’s call!
But the time the bell declared the end of day at school, we knew the time was not right to start our journey back. With sun over head and rickshawallas not willing to drop home at reasonable rates, haggling all day long we had reasons to crib!

Well, I can just pity the school-goers today! Or perhaps have a reason to cheer as I have crossed that stage! But wait, don’t I just keep saying ‘Wish I could grow up again’? Even today my Gmail status says ‘Wish time machine was a reality’!