Summer is a time for mental toughness

While the western countries welcome the summer with a frenzied song and dance and half naked office goers lounge on all parts of the pavement for a restorative tan before the daily board meeting, it is a different story in India.

Here, summer brings along a mental challenge that a few survive. In India, summer is looked at like the Europeans look at the plague. While it boasts a lesser mortality rate than the plague, pedestrians can be observed to suddenly swoon like the maidens in romance novels. Just like there was the involvement of vermin during the black plague, there are vermin in summer as well - the electricity board.

The employees of the board hold a striking resemblance to homicidal convicts imprisoned in the strongest prisons of the world. Now what does a convict look like you ask and take a tour of the electricity board and you will become something of a connoisseur of convicts. While not many sport the more telling crescent shaped scar on either cheek some do have a few teeth missing due to prolonged acquaintance with tobacco.

It must be noted that their deeds rather than appearances qualify them to the most exclusive prisons globally. After knocking their foreheads together over master plans to dominate the world they decide on mentally weakening the strong breed of Chennaites. Our toil on the crowded streets of Chennai and our singular prowess of waiting for hours outside the US consulate has caught the attention of some of the biggest names in the field of deception and decimation.

So now at the peak of summer days when gourmet chefs can be seen flipping their French crepes on the pavements outside, the board members go ahead with their master plan. Exactly when the heat sizzles the feathers of our native birds (they come in a uniform black), the electricity supply is terminated for houses holding the most accomplished minds (yes, mine is frequently targeted). Noon is the hot favorite. Now by geographical design, easterly and westerly winds make a point of avoiding our quaint sea facing city, so devoid of electricity not a leaf rustles.

The maddening heat slowly curls her fingers around the weaker of the masses, their sweaty brow tells tales of an inflamed and agitated brain inside. While the weaker of the stock fume and fret during these hours of distress, the stockier ones find a secluded spot and go into the ‘cooling position’. After scientific testing and verification, it has been found that if said person lies in unsaid location on their back with legs and hands stretched out much like children in snow making snow angels, the heat has a less degenerative effect on said body and mind. This is fondly called the cooling position. Sometimes tongues can hang out to accentuate the posture.

Now that the master plan has been revealed I will go into the various sub-branches of this devious brain melter. There is the prolonged absence in electricity which wreaks havoc on the fretters and fumers but for the cool positioned it is like picking teeth with a tooth pick. The next one is when every hour the electricity is terminated for ten minutes. It targets office goers who are not in the habit of saving every few seconds and so every hour they dejectedly watch their toil disappear into the blank screen. The cool positioned, face a tougher challenge with this repetitive tactic as their body’s balance with the outside temperature is repeatedly disturbed when the fan or air conditioner kicks in after ten minutes of egg boiling heat. And the third is the cruelest of all when every hour a mere ten minutes if electricity is supplied. Here families have been known to resort to the foulest poison and there have been reports of scenes similar to genocide in the city’s streets when people try to find the elusive tree in their neighborhood and seek its shady branches and unrelenting try to fight off sweaty and fevered neighbors and half burnt birds.

As this is just the onset of summer few fatalities have been reported. But already there have been a few days of pilot testing their torture tactics. The electricity board have no doubt many new brain vaporizers up their sleeve but we Chennaites are ready to brave another summer.


Note: The author has not succumbed to any brain damage other than the ones suffered at birth so please keep your concerns aside and be assured that the electricity board has not claimed her as a victim…yet.

Hair raisers and what nots

A cumbersome requirement for membership in civilized society is having the head snipped at regularly and fitting into a decent set of clothes. It comes as no surprise that I have been living on the very edge of these requirements not by volition but because of nothing less than cosmic conspiracy. Call me paranoid but I do believe the government might have a hand in it as well. Listen carefully to the evidence at hand and feel free to wriggle those brows when called for.

Born in the summery month of March, my head was bestowed with what might be kindly termed a generous and somewhat boisterous set of curls. They seemed to thrive and flourish on madras curries and everything typically designed to curb populations by the millions. Even regular immersions in pools of highly chlorinated water did not discourage the stringers to fall out. So now after much threatening and cajoling I have left behind me a trail of broken shears and weeping hairstylists, for no matter what they claimed their fingers never could disentangle from the mess swiftly enough.

But there was just one man ‘Pete’ we shall call him who bewitched my mop into submission and his clippers breathed a new life into my social standing. No more did people huddle in groups and discuss the man-eaters I held over my forehead and no more was a flick of my lock any threat to my neighbors. But alas all was not well in my Keratin kingdom. While dancing my way to my fortnightly visit to Pete I was informed that he had left to Dubai. It seemed too much of a coincidence that my tamer of locks would require a break so soon after discovering me in his office.

Teenagers take heartbreak very badly and I was no exception. So I fled from the scene and threw myself under another’s scissors. Weepy and hiccoughy I stammered ‘Do what you want’ and the startled barber started clipping. Perhaps he was suffering from Parkinson’s or I had been overly conclusive in my weeping but by the end of my appointment my scalp was making appearances where it should not have. And to pour fat into the fire the ailing fiend charged me a whole month’s worth of pocket money. Trudging home I thought up innovative stories to relate to sympathetic enquirers about why my hair looked as it did.

Nobody seemed to believe that chance encounters with bird droppings caused inconsistent hair fall. I tried the ‘my hairdresser had a stroke’ story but I didn’t want to be termed the cause of an honest man’s end. So over the years I lived a life of a hair fugitive. Never visiting a parlor twice and always paying by cash. These visits have resulted in various styles that can be struck off the suitable list. One brave lady tried the electric blonde look refusing to take into consideration the black haired dumpling of a customer that I was. In these instances caps and bandanas came in very handy. After all these are sensitive times and one doesn’t want to find themselves suddenly flogged at by nervous pedestrians.

Slowly I have learnt to live around my conspicuous hair. I grew a decent sized brain and let people think that I spent no time on frivolous acts like combing and hairstyling. I secured a paired of glasses and claimed impaired vision after hours of twisting the so called brain and burning the midnight lamp. And its amazing how perceptive onlookers are to a wild haired bespectacled individual walking on congested streets with their nose stuck in a book. They immediately part ways or yip plaintively when my foot meets theirs rather abruptly. The next time I shall explain the trials and tribulations of finding the right clothes to lessen the number of screams from those who can see.