New Mother Nature Taking Over

India switched seasons without me really even knowing about it.  Apparently Holi is the weekend which initiates a sudden, dramatic rise in temperature, from innocuous seventy-five degree days to a light bake closer to ninety.  The thing with the heat as of late is that it's not as muggy as I'm accustomed to, so even ninety-five degree days aren't particularly unpleasant.  It's manageable if you can only stay out of the sun.

As I'm reminded, though, the temperature has only risen twenty degrees Fahrenheit these past few weeks.  We have another ten or twelve degrees to go ... in Celsius.

Even while clambering for shade, I was startled today to hear someone talk about "summer".  On your correspondent's personal calendar, summer isn't meant to start for another two or three months--in fact, long after I've returned home to Boston.  We're both from the same hemisphere, so it's not a latitudinal thing.  It's just that the months I would call "summer" are spent in India under the downpour of the monsoon.  So, that warm part of the year, the nice time when everyone should be fanning themselves next to a tall drink of something cold - this is it.

It's a funny thing to think about, that different cultures have different calendars.  Changing seasons are something you normally take for granted.  Honestly, though, did I really expect Indians to have any concept of "Fall"?  It's not like trees in Delhi would ever change color and lose their leaves.  By the same token, what could I possibly know about monsoons?  Best of all... you call that "winter"?

You know what they say: when in Rome.  I've retired my jeans, invested in lots of loose-fitting linen, and have resigned myself to the incoming low simmer ... whether I'm ready for it or not.