Will This Be Kolkata's Summer of 49?

 Published in The Telegraph My Kolkata on May 4, 2024.  You can read it online here or read the original below.

“I hate to see the evening' sun go down

I hate to see the evening' sun go down

It makes me think I'm on my last go 'round”

- from St Louis Blues, reputed to be the first blues song to become popular.

With apologies to W C Handy, arguably the father of the blues, I would rather have “I LOVE to see the evening sun go down”. Wouldn’t you agree?

Because, when the sun goes down in Kolkata, light balmy breezes replace the oppressive loo winds that have tortured us throughout the day. Because, when the sun goes down, the temperature goes down a notch or two. Because when the sun goes down, it’s sundowners with plenty of ice!

Keep your cool. This is not just another joke on The 42. That building has seen its share of memes this summer. It’s time to go higher with the temperature touching 44 and higher in some cases. 44 is Lewis Hamilton’s racing number. It’s a palindrome number. It features in Tambola as “all the fours, forty four”. Also, Summer of 44 is a movie subtitled The Lost Generation - which we are fast becoming. And 44 degrees Centigrade is 111 degrees in Fahrenheit, which is the score at which Umpire David Shepherd stands on one leg.

If the heat hasn’t touched your brain, it surely has seared mine and left me damaged enough to write this - especially when I know nothing about cricket. Nor about Lost Generations, since I’m from the last one where we had to figure out novel ways to stay cool in summer - we didn’t have ACs and global warming either, nor online study options and work from home.

The Condition of Air

But we did have to keep cool. From the humble hand pankha to the ceiling fan, air had to be circulated to give us the impression we were cooler than we felt. Innovative inventions saved the day. There was khus khus in the breezy window, watered occasionally so that the drying droplets could cool the air in the room. The more sophisticated had desert coolers which, though we were far from being near the sand, gave a really cool breeze, especially when topped up with ice cubes. It was always a toss up - should the cubes go in the cooler or in the water jug or the tumblers? Those who were lucky enough to have pedestal fans would hang a wet gamcha or any cloth over the front and get the same effect. These days this entitled generation can purchase the same device at a high price and call them “mist fans”.

One creative friend of mine used to strip down to his bare necessities and sit in front of his refrigerator with the door open. Not an ideal solution, but it gave him access to a few goodies inside too. And he was cool. The secret sauce? His electricity and maintenance bills were paid by his employer.

Most of us have heard or come across Dhananjay Chakraborty, the man who has a taxi with a small garden on the roof. < Link > Cool and green, inside and out, he drives around Kolkata keeping his passengers cool. Not so lucky the Uber Bikes and Rapidos. With extra sleeves, gloves, face masks and helmets, looking like modern Ninja Turtles, these guys brave the heat to drop their pillion riders safely to their destinations.

Cool Splashes

In the days when children still walked to school - yes there was a time in history - we beat the summer sun by the game Run in the Sun and Walk in the Shade. So, every time there was a bit of tree covering - this too, was history - we walked to cool down. And in the bright sunny patches, we ran to reduce the exposure. Of course, we very soon had it reversed and got to school hot, bothered and craving for that tap water. Yes, tap. There weren’t any water coolers dotting the educational landscape back then.

Tap water was the easiest. On the way to and from school there were a few chaapokols - hand pumps that gushed sweet underground water for us to splash around and drink. And we survived!

The lucky few could buy a daab, the green coconut, the water of which is legendary in its cooling properties. Today we can buy genuine, original, pre bottled daab water off the shelf. And it can be refrigerated. The march of science. A scientific march which extends to the production of kilolitres of the ever-popular lassi mixed in washing machines, no less.

Some of us would remember those tin boxes on wheels with a hydraulic pipe down the middle. The vendor would squeeze limes into a glass, add a mixture of rock salt and other tastemakers and then top it up with cold water drawn from the can. Nimbu pani in all its majestic glory at less than 50 paise. Today it has evolved into soda sikanji and is much sought after as a thirst quencher at a little more than a hundred times the old price.

For those of us who could save bus fare the next stop was opposite Lighthouse cinema. The stalls are still there, selling fresh fruit juice sometimes infused with milk and more often drowned in ice, put through a mixie. Their USP was two glasses for the price of one - as you finished the first, they were waiting with the jug to top up the glass. Not anymore, sadly. Even cooling down has cooled down like the stock market.

Fresh fruit - mousambi and pineapple are popular - put through hand grinders and sugarcane gandheri crushed in manual rolling mills, strained with a suspicious piece of cloth, ensured we had fresh choices too at prices that sound unbelievable today.

Even more suspicious was the ice-gola or chuski -- crushed or shaved ice, topped with brightly coloured and tasty liquids which one could suck at to reduce body heat and possibly increase disease. But we survived. Today it’s all available in sanitized, packaged varieties with large MRPs printed.

The New Market boasted an outlet called Magnolia’s. Their signature offering was American Cold Drink - some kind of milky, pink smoothie with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top. This was market-heaven for us and made up for the pain of shopping with mum. The shop has long gone. Smoothie ice creams now come out of automatic dispensers on the street outside. We had our choices of paid hydration, water was free and we weathered the heat.

By the time I finished writing this piece, the temperature has hit 49 - that is the year of the California Gold Rush. In Kolkata it represents the rush for AirConditioners! Be cool. A half century is coming up and people are still playing cricket. Me? I love to see the evening sun go down.