45 Degree C...

It has been one of the hottest days. The meteorogical department has been saying it for days, but the heat just turns hotter. Amidst the dust, din, and sweat that forms the complete package of this city; with its packed markets, and million cars, parked into a hundred malls; life manages to go on. Sometimes succefully, other times not so.

Concomitant with all the colors of this city, with its smoky evenings, and blinding days; somewhere in everyday life, a thousand stories are born, a writer is created. What these eyes see, and this blistered skin feels is added to the rare threads of minute electrical impulses inside the neurons, and somehow all this adds up into a tale of this city. A cinamscope of its life. A biopic of its lives.

Theres that guy, in his neatly ironed pink clean shirt. His hair is decently cut and he flashes a honest smile, bpth getting rarer these days. When you go upto him, he'll ask you with a cheerful smile about where you want to go. His green auto, with a yellow synthetic top and a red reccine seat, is quite like every other auto. But he makes a difference. His bright eyes are slightly wet at the corners. Thats natural if you aer the eldest in the family, with two younger sisters. When you have had to pick up the auto driving as a part time measure to provide sustenance, after your father lost everything in his business. When you have to smother your dreams so that other eyes can peacefully sleep. And when you find that 'for-a-little-while' job turning into a full time commitment. Responsibilities tie, and freedom doesnt come for free.

It maybe those five kids at the McDonalds, sharing a cone of 'Softy'. Digging with their dirty fingers, into a vanilla cone that has to be divided among them, and who gets how much is determined by their leadership instincts, and ofcourse who eats the fastest. And while you see this, you may realise that what you have just gulped down in a jiffy, is worth ten such cones for them. And that little vanilla scoop is not a harbinger of the rise in the social equality, but the border that divides us from them, the other 'us'. Or you may choose to turn your nose, and look out in some other direction, while your lips twitch into a, "Ohhh! these urchins..."

It may also be a ride late at night in that big green DTC Bus, one that has a plus sign within a circle. More often than notm before you manage to step onto it, it will already have started moving. And once inside, you will buy a ticket from a conductor who will not move fom his seat, nor will let anyone else sit next to him. While you hand out the coins, ten voices will participate in a rhapsody, that would cause any other soul to jump out of the window. But the conductor would calmly tear the little white tickets from his bundle and hand them to the out stretched hands. Some fair, some not so fair, some dark. Full sleeves with clean cuffs, is rare; what one often gets is half sleeves, or dirty cuffed full sleeves. But if you get very busy observing this, the conductor will shake you and ask you to move on, if not him then other passengers would jab you, and you will have to. So all this needs to be taken in a moment, for the bus wont give you time. And it has to be retained, in bits and pieces till one day you can see the full picture.

Then the bus would also make you realise one very important lesson, that no matter how much of deo you apply or which brand you follow. What you smell is invaraibly your standing neighbor. Who so in this oppressive heat would be miraculously grinning at you, or staring at your watch because it has a big white dial, with a weird green strap. Seconds would morph into minutes while the eyes will constantly scan for a person who is twitching before getting off his seat. If you dont secure that seat before he gets up, maximum chances are someone else will have it. And once seated, you will only know how far you have travelled by the gusts of hot air that will keep hitting your face from the dirty glass window that is always stuck in between.

And as i told you it was one of the hottest days today, i just got down with a sweaty shirt, and defeated deo, theres an electronic signboard nearby, it reads the temperature... 45 degree celsius. At a small tea stall nearby an autowallah is asking a ragged shirt wearing kid to make some tea. He picks up a newspaper, which is crumpled because ts two days old, and fans himself with it. He turns around and looks at me staring at him, his lips move and i can hear him say "Such a hot day..."