Ah, the scorching hot summer!
That wonderful time of year when your electricity bills are higher than your monthly EMI; that time when you contemplate cooking eggs on the pavement rather than the stove; and also the time when you feel like using oven-mitts just to handle the car's flaming hot steering wheel.
Yes, the glorious sweltering, make-your-clothes-stick-to-your-body summer is here. And it's just the beginning.
During summer, most people at the gym sweat like sinners at a church during confession. The body odour is unbelievable.
As you've probably gathered, I am not a big fan (pardon the pun). While I cannot deny that my son's 70+ days of summer holidays where he does whatever he pleases while I try to work at home do contribute to my irritability, it's the heat that really gets to me. And the humidity that does many unspeakable things to my hair. I also tend to sweat rather violently as soon as the temperature creeps above 20°C, which also drives me bonkers.
Then there's the gym... which in the summer heat becomes more harrowing a place than ever. Now truth is I visit the gym mostly to pay my respect to all the fancy equipment that they have bought with the hefty monthly membership that they charge me. But while my sense of hygiene is debatable at times, two things that I find rather difficult to appreciate are sweaty gym equipment (hello, there are tissue boxes, paper towels, and gym towels for a reason!) and the fact that most people there do not seem to have heard of this thing called a deodorant. During summer, most people at the gym sweat like sinners at a church during confession. The body odour is unbelievable. Especially when, if the advertising is to be believed, we now have not just 4- or 8-hour deos, but sprays and roll-ons that ostensibly keep you lily fresh for 48 hours.
Of course there's a plus side of hitting the gym during summer—you could simply stand on the treadmill and walk away with enough sweat to make you think you ran a marathon. I call it the illusion of exercise.
On the list of things that cause "boudoir discontent" amongst married couples, adjusting the temperature of the AC ranks right up there.
So yeah, I am not much of a summer person. And if I think about it, I believe I may have been spoilt by my time in the UK. To most people who love the sunny and hot weather, summer in the UK is very much like your favourite actor making a guest appearance in an otherwise awful movie. Pretty much the only "weather highlight" in a country that is mostly wet, windy and overcast. In some ways, summer in the UK is like the happy ending that you were promised with the girl of your dreams, but it "'came too soon."
I believe I may have the privilege of being part of a small minority of people who actually did not mind the relatively short duration of summer while in the UK. So needless to say, when we returned to India, I was in a world of pain, even in relatively temperate Bangalore. And with the option of an AC, my wife and I suddenly had another bone to pick.
Some like it hot. And some like it cold. In the bedroom, I mean. The challenge is often finding the middle ground. My wife, for instance, needs the comfort of a warm room to sleep. I wouldn't go say that it needs to be a furnace (although, personally I do feel like that some days!), but she can't sleep in a reasonably cold room. Now, me on the other hand, I would rather have the room feel like an igloo. On the list of things that cause "boudoir discontent" amongst married couples, adjusting the temperature of the AC ranks right up there.
I have decided that the saner option is just to tell people that I'm not fat; I am just hot and expand during summer.
So my wife and I often end up playing a game that I now fondly refer to as "Attack of the Blanket Hogger", in the middle of the night. My wife loves to be wrapped up like an Egyptian Mummy, failing which she finds her nightly rendezvous with sleep quite arduous. I, on the other hand, am not too fond of blankets. I'm more of a free spirit and will only use a blanket as the last resort. The problem starts during the wee hours of the morning when my wife wakes up shivering, only to discover that the blanket is now being hogged by me. Yes, the very same person who gave her the long lecture about "blankets being for wimps" and insisted on having the AC on the coldest possible setting.
So, yes, summer for me is a tough period. Between expelling my body weight in sweat, battling sticky equipment and smelly folks at the gym, trying to lose weight while the bakery opposite the gym bakes delectable goodies and having blanket and temperature-setting wars with my better half, I have decided that the saner option is just to tell people that I'm not fat; I am just hot and expand during summer.
And of course, as some famous person once said: "Fortunately my culture believes in cremation. So I still have a chance to have a smoking hot body!"