HOT SUMMER NIGHTS.

The scorching sun used to heat up our top floor flat in the summer of 70s. The concrete and steel retained the radiated benevolent warmth late until the night to stifle our souls. ACs were an unheard of luxury, those days.The poor fans ran in a tired circular motion, relentlessly to offer respite. All they could do was to throw the warm air back at us. I did not blame them. At times we all would take our mattresses and rush to the terrace to sleep, hoping to inhale some cool breezy air. The small insects would buzz around our ears threatening to enter them. Some friends would tell ghost stories to amuse us.The pepsi colas in their thick encased plastic sheaths would be sucked furiously by us to keep cool. The ice gola wallah would do brisk business till the wee hours of the night.The early light would awaken us and we would go back to our houses to escape the glare of the sun and catch some more lazening sleep. Tempers used to run foul in the summer months amongst our parents as they had to endure more of us because of vacations.The heat used to induce some chemical changes in the brain lowering its resistance threshold. Our young bodies were flexible and adapted to the change in the weather. Our vacations meant playing all the time regardless of the heat. Our mothers used to make lime water in water bags and forcibly make us consume it. The water bag was an essential accessory of the playing kids. A few slum dwellers resided near our building,who incidentally were our hard working sweaty maids and their huge families.The brick colored mangalore tiles and asbestos over their heads would heat up like an oven and compound their misery. A certain knock in the afternoon would be from them with a dull huge utensil in their hands asking for cold refrigerated water. We happily used to comply. Humanity existed, many decades back. My dad one day had a brain wave and he rushed to the nearby grocer to get jute bags. The jute bags were stitched by our maid to make a big sheet. The sheet was placed on the terrace above our sleeping hall and in the night time we used to pour 2 buckets of water on it. The fibrous jute used to trap the moisture and cool down our ceiling. The AC like effect used to amaze us and keep us calm. The sleep was more peaceful and we used to dream of the cold breezy snow clad mountains pictured in our text books. Also, a wet brick kept in one corner of the room brought down the ambient temperature of our room. The 80s brought about a lot of changes in the middle class household. An AC was installed in our bedroom and we marvelled at the frosty air generated by it. When the AC was on, all measures would be taken to leak proof the room.Not a single waft of cold air would escape our room. All of us would sleep in the AC room and snore away to sweet glory. An AC was a luxury those days and a status symbol too. Our electricity bills started to ascend as the temperature descended in our room but hot summers were pardonable for the same. I have sweet memories of hot summers during my childhood. 2012AD- All the rooms except bathrooms have ACs and kids sometimes even ask for an AC to be on in winters and cold monsoon rains.They belong to a different era.They have never been on our terrace. The ACs now silently run, round the clock oblivious of our early struggle filled times. They will never understand our jute bag times.