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27 August 2005
North and South
Up in Berkeley where I was for the most of this week, the inlet currents into the Bay put a healthy distance between man and the scorching sun. Mornings began hazily with newspapers crisply rustling in the tender air and spewed steam from coffee danced upwards and mingled into the mist. Lithe bodies wrapped themselves in denim and down feather, leather boots and suede jackets, folded hands and entwined hands. Sweet water was forsaken for shots of whisky to regurgitate the heat from below. The only warmth there was, was in the words of the African-American women when they were talking of their churches and the fine octagenuarian women in them. The afternoons were balmy and sun-dappled however, and the campus would molt out of its winterwear to display colours more varied and in keeping with its vibrant all-kinds spirit. The evenings brought out both the sinking sun and the street-lamps serenading under a sharp moon-clad sky. The restaurants -- Japanese, Ethiopian, Mediterranean, Italian -- filled up to the brim, the nightclubs across the moat that keeps the prying city at bay teemed with revellers and teetotalling companions alike, the music blared at the upper reaches of screeching audibility. And then, three days of an academic interlude prevailed before I took off for Los Angeles whence the flight took half as much time as the shuttle back to Pasadena did.I am beset with muggy, drenching heat. It rushes up and burns open eyes, scorches past the nose, reddens the ears. It melts the golden-tinted hair, pierces past artifices set to block it and howls an ungodly, maddening cry. The loo or the hot winds that prevail in the desert sands and parched earth of Gujarat and Rajasthan are here in our midst, they bring with them no stench of imminent festering but clammer incessantly for our wilting.
