Summer Loves

Somebody recently said, "The only thing that makes summers bearable are the mangoes".

It got me thinking. No doubt one is almost inclined to forgive summer (its heat) for the mangoes it brings but as I started thinking, bits and pieces of memories started assailing me:

1) Gradual seeping away of all scholarly inclinations as everyone waits impatiently for the summer vacations to start! And of course the general desire that the DM or the Mayor would get the schools closed earlier due to the heat wave sweeping across the city!

2) The last day of the school - ahh, the best! The eagerness, the excitement, the knowledge that there will be no schools for the next 2 months! It's almost like standing on the top of the world.

3) The sondhi-khushboo when coolers whirl to life the first time. The long afternoons spent sitting in front of the cooler and solving mysteries with the Five Find Outers, living the school life at Malory Towers & Chalet school, and adventuring with the Adventurous Four. Summer afternoons for me are synonymous with being lost in another world - from Enid Blyton to Perry Mason to Thomas Hardy to Sydney Sheldon to Jane Austen and so many more.

4) Aam-ka-panna & pudeene ki chutney - a must for all summer lunches.

5) Litchee - succulent, fat, drippy, sticky and yummy. Made all the more dear because they used to be available for only 2-3 weeks in the market!

6) The king of fruits - Aam after lunch, aam after dinner and aam-in-between-slices-of-bread for breakfast. 'Dussheri' was always my favourite and remains to this day though I have yet to find it in Hyderabad :(

7) Swimming classes, going to nani's place, my best friend's home, 10-year-old-skirts meant to be worn only during the summers, the summer holidays spent in Benaras, sleeping on the floor during power cuts, sitting outside and staring at the stars on electricity-less nights during power cuts, rummaging through my dad's book collection to see if I could find some book I'd still not read and the realization one day that I'd read 'em all, cold-coffee with ice cream, watching mostly inane and some good Hollywood 'classics' on TNT (does anyone remember that channel?).

Summer for me is a mosaic of all these memories. In fact, as I re-read the list above it strikes me how seasonal these memories are. Most of them are tied in with one aspect of summers or the other. Hmm... perhaps, something to think about in a future post!

Meanwhile, do you find your favourite memories 'seasonal' too?