It's a hundred degrees out there!

This summer is excruciatingly hot and oppressively humid, writes Sunil Lala.

The whining and the complaining have reached a fever pitch - again. You can hear it at parties and get-togethers, at work, on the radio and TV, at your local grocery store, at the gas station, and you can read it in the local newspaper. Wherever you turn, there it is. You cannot get away from it, no matter how hard you try. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about the big whine - the one about the heat, and about how bad it is this year!

Boston this summer is excruciatingly hot, oppressively humid, and completely unbearable of course. Believe it or not, just last week, the temperature touched - horror of horrors - 101 degrees Fahrenheit! To those accustomed to the metric system, that converts to about 38 degrees Celsius. That is, it's about the temperature that causes people in North India to breathe a huge sigh of relief, for it gives them a break from the daily highs that are routinely in the mid-forties.

I remember the summers of my childhood. I remember the blistering, dusty wind blowing on my face as I biked back from school in the afternoon. I remember the absurdity of having to wear a necktie to school, even in the scorching heat, as that one lone squeaky classroom fan struggled in vain in its efforts to keep us cool. I remember our boxy Ambassador car whose only weapons against the soaring temperature were its darkly tinted windows and yes, an actual miniature rotating fan on the dashboard! I remember the mosquitoes, and the simple methods we employed to fight them - a tube of Odomos and a mosquito net.

I remember sitting at the back of our class, our fingers crossed and our little colourful pocket transistors glued to our ears, cheering for Sunil Gavaskar as he patiently and confidently demolished yet another pace attack from Michael Holding and his men. I remember the smell of the "Khus" in the home cooler, as it blew cool moisture laden air into our rooms. I remember my dad showing me how to change the carbon element of the water pump to make sure it kept on pumping water from the tank onto this "Khus". I remember the launch of "Double-Seven" at the annual Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan - a gift from the Janta Party, supposedly better than Coke, and a reminder of Indira Gandhi's humiliating defeat in the general elections. I remember my mom making refreshing cold coffee in her Moulinex mixer, for me and my brother, before we went out to play in the sweltering sun.

And I remember the King of fruit - the mango! And once again, I remember my Dad buying buckets of them and bringing them home for us. Not the pathetic, one type fits all, Mexican or Californian or Floridian variety sold here in the United States. No sir, I mean REAL mangoes. Mangoes of different shapes, sizes and forms, mangoes of different colors, mangoes in all their glory! From Safeda to Langda to Chausa to Dussehris. Each one quite unlike the others. Each one with its own unique scent, its own unique flavour, its own unique taste. Each one with its very own personality.