When It's Hot...

I was trying hard to forget the heat. It was too hot and my body was literally burning.The sun was in its peak. I took in my hand, the book-"Left Behind" by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. That was an interesting novel and I read up to thirty pages in a sitting. For I wanted to forget the heat.

Tim and Jerry had marvelously been influencing me through their 'mysterious' plot and flowing language. But still, I was unaware of one fact, the fact that why I could not be able to shun this constant tribulation from atmosphere temperature.

"Has our earth strayed from its orbit, and reached near the sun?"- I thought, as every science savvy ignorant. It might be over forty degree Celsius, the temperature.

The book was luring, but it was an irresistible instinct that, made me to think for a moment on the good health of my body. I decided to undress to protect myself from frying up. There was no one else in home and so no Indian cultural dilemma obstructed me. I don't know how to avoid such situations when such dilemmas come into play even though my awareness about the notion, that culture is nothing but a constructed pattern of practices, is in full.

During summers I usually wear no shirt at home. I wear the common Kerala "lungi" and an underwear inside it. Lungi itself is a highly air permitting fabric, which is wrapped around the waist. But still, undressing means something really special. It is a special feeling to be naked and to loiter like that. There was no air conditioner and the ceiling fan was reeling above. I laid there on the tilled floor. The floor also was hot like the air.

'It is only March. What will happen if the weather is going on like this. There are two more months to pass, for the rain clouds to 'dress up' the sky'- I thought.

I took a little nap. I saw a dream. I screamed and opened my eyes. 'What was that!'- I tried to remember. I saw that I was in my classroom. Suddenly the heat arose. It increased and increased and everyone started stripping themselves off.I too did it in the same way.

By seeing girls naked, my classmates that they were, I found it too difficult to look at them like that. So I closed my eyes. When, after my friend's call, I opened my eyes, I found every one dressed as perfectly as they had been. I only was found nude. Shocked, embarrassed, dead, I screamed.

That was the dream. My whole body was chilled. I stood up. 'That was just a dream'- I tried to console myself. I was really nervous and the sweat cooled my flesh.

I started thinking. I wanted to think something to drag the memories of that dream out of my psyche. I started thinking about the weather, which I think has some link with what I had dreamt.

Global warming is a highly disputed topic in the contemporary world. Discussions and arguments are being celebrated everywhere. Talks are being conducted. Bills are being passed out in Parliaments. But after all, nothing is happening. It is only when nature affects our complacent way of living that we think about it. Or otherwise, when it simply stops supplying our basic needs, we think of it. It is our culture that reminds us of the nature, then for the sake of that culture itself can't we provide it a peaceful co-existence? 'Atleast for our own sake...'. After such a pause, always a question arises. 'How?'. I also was unaware of the answer as many others, the way in which we can protect our nature. I put on my clothing.

Along with a spade, I walked out. Outside the courtyard, I cracked the soil one foot deep. I uprooted a small plant from the home garden, and planted it there and watered it. I found it pleasing and consoling. I found it. That was the way.