The air in the plains of north india is heavy with dust..the dust settles everywhere- on screens of doors and windows, on the blades of the fans, on curtains, on your clothes, and it seems even in your lungs. There is no escaping it. One hot summer evening, its very still, the air sits heavy, not a leaf on a tree is moving. It seems as if all living creatures have even stopped breathing and you feel suffocated and wonder how much more you can take....lost in these thoughts, you notice a slight movement about you- is it the rustling of leaves? maybe it is..you hope it is..but do not dare to think aloud or even to acknowledge it to yourself for fear that you will be disappointed.
But while you have been lost in these musings, a slight breeze has started blowing and in a few minutes, it has grown in strength..it has become a definite breeze now and it has suddenly become very pleasant..the world around you seems to have come to life- leaves are rustling away merrily, birds are chirping or tweeting or whatever it is that they do...small insects and squirrels are suddenly visible.. even the air seems alive. You remember the way you were feeling half an hour ago - hopeless, despondent, suffocated- and you cant stop yourself from breaking into a song...you feel you cant sit still anymore,you have been infused with a new energy which will not let you be still...so you get up and walk about. It feels as if everything's all right in the world just now. Meanwhile, the breeze has been picking up and its now more a wind than a breeze.. things such as newspapers, polythenes, leaves have started getting blown about from the neighbour's garden into yours. But you dont mind one bit...you are in a state of euphoria about the relief from the terrible heat of barely an hour ago..and of course now you can see the sky blacken with clouds in the distance, so you wait eagerly for the rain to come and settle the dust, and also lower the temperature a bit. In this happy state, you feel you cant celebrate the moment without some tea and pakoras..
So off into the kitchen you go, happily humming "barso re megha megha" or some such thing..and start cutting and chopping things for your pakoras, blissfully unaware that outside, what started as a pleasant breeze is now becoming a gale....it has started bending trees and blowing about bigger things like plastic buckets, thatched roofs, even breaking off branches from trees. There is a whole lot of dust blowing around..much more than we originally started with. When you become aware of this, you scramble about closing doors and windows to minimize the amount of dust blown into your home- all thought of tea and pakoras forgotten- and also run to gather up your clothes from the washing line in the backyard to prevent your clothes (specially undergarments) from being scattered all over the neighbourhood. "Still", you think, "at least the air is cooler now and rain should be here soon to settle all this dust." By the time you finish your thought, the electricity goes off.
"@#$$%@@!!"
Now, there is stifling heat indoors because you have closed all doors and windows to save yourself some cleaning and dusting afterwards.So you try to be brave and venture outside into the verandah to at least avail of the cool wind...sure enough the wind is cool ....and loaded with dust which, in addition to accumulating everywhere else, gets into your eyes also. You screw up your eyes and look up into the sky to see why those black clouds haven't arrived yet, and what do you see? -- they came and were blown away by the strong wind............................................................................
That is the story of my life these days...
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