Sublimity…

It’s official, it’s too hot here. Yes I realize that it is still February and in any normal sense of the word, summer is still very far away, but when it’s 30ËšC outside and the sun beats down like a searing furnace, there are few other words that come to mind. I came to India knowing that I was going to have to come to terms with the heat at some point, but I never thought I’d have to deal with it so soon. I’m starting to wonder how I’m going to survive here in May and June, because from now until then, the weather is just going to get hotter. Walking the 5 minutes back from the office to the guest house for lunch today, I could feel myself skin burning through the layer of sweat that had accumulated on my forehead, and sitting in our little rooftop office after lunch, my head really started pounding and I just felt like flopping out on the table and taking a siesta (but instead we had to compile findings from all the MLP exercises we did at Banoli). Thankfully the nights are still cool so there is some respite, but it’s still too much.

In other news, I’ve moved again. On arriving back at the guesthouse after the last trip, we were told that there were 25 trainees coming that same evening and that there wasn’t any space for us (Debashish hadn’t told them we were coming, despite the fact we talked to him the night before), but after some frustrated phone calls by Sunil and a trip by Anil (the guesthouse manager) to visit Debashish in person, we managed to work it out. The end result was that we are still staying in the guesthouse, but I’ve had to move rooms again. All in all it’s not bad, I’ve now in a smaller room (means less likely I’ll to have to share) downstairs that in addition to a cupboard like the one I had previously, has nicer beds (solid wooden beds that are almost long enough for me and don’t have the annoying metal bars on the ends) and a table with a plug nearby (so I have a quasi desk for the first time in 2 months). The trade offs are that it was a little annoying to have to move all my things again (despite the fact that Debashish had previously promised that I wouldn’t have to move from the room upstairs) and that there’s no hot water in the bathroom (though it’s always available from the nearby kitchen, and with the temperatures the way they are now – and the direction they’re going to go), but all in all, I think my new place is better. I’ve again been promised I won’t have to move again, and this time I hope it remains true (unless it gets too hot, in which case I’m going to have to ask PSI to put me somewhere where there is air-conditioning…).

Being downstairs also means that it’s generally a little cooler, and being at the back of the building away from the sun in a small room with thick cement walls means that it actually stays a tolerable temperature during the day, so when I come back at lunch I do have a place to flop down and recover from the walk. Due to the heat I’ve been wearing my sandals the last two days, but the benefit of cool feet has been overshadowed by aching pain in my legs after walking any distance, and I suspect that it’s because the sandals don’t have any soles anymore (the fact they’ve survived 7 years of heavy use this well is very impressive). Looks like I’m going to have to go find a pair here, but given that I couldn’t find anything I liked back in Canada, I doubt I’ll find anything here in a country where the largest standard shoe size is 10 (compared to my size 13 feet) and where the dirt-cheap, blue plastic/rubber toe-thong flip-flop (chappal) accounts for at least 95% of the sandals (if not footwear) sold. To give you an idea of their pervasiveness, I’ve noticed that even most Garhwali villagers wear nothing more than these, even when climbing up and down the steep mountain slopes on switchbacking, loose dirt paths. I can’t see how they manage to keep their feet in the things walking up hill (despite the deep impressions that have been worn into – and almost completely through – the sandal base over the many years of hard use), it’s an act that seems to defy gravity let alone comfort, but here in India it’s just another demonstration of the amazing adaptations that people have made to make the most of meager resources.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.