That's not my line; I filched it from the Beatles. But I relate to it as passionately as if it had been my own.
That's not my line; I filched it from the Beatles. But I relate to it as passionately as if it had been my own.
After the monsoon vagaries of this year, it'su00a0 a relief to have blue skies and sunny days. The mornings are cool and crisp and splendid. It is early days for morning dew and really crisp frost, but there is a change in the air. It is so clean and cool, one can hardly believe such things as climate change and global warming.
Bangalore's pre-winter season is somethingu00a0 to experience 'Europe without its winter snows. India without its blazing sun.'
After a dry summer and months of unseasonal rainfall, we are in this prelude to winter. No more overnight deluges, flooded roads, stranded traffic, or collapsing embankments. Just balmy, sunny days.
The mornings are cold. They remind me of Christmas December in the last century when Bangalore was surrounded by 'thopes' of casuarinas, on barren dry land. Casuarina fir trees made good scaffolding for the modest size of buildings of those days. The fir branches were excellent fuel-rich firewood. So were the little cones which could be burnt with a fizz and a crackle.
Cones made schoolboy ammunition. They were painted/wrapped in silver foil to make colourful ornaments for Christmas decorations. Half grown firs would be planted in pots. And decorated with glass balls and fairy lights for indoor Christmas trees.u00a0
I digressu2026 By late morning the weather gets hot; the unrestricted sun blazing through a cloudless sky. In the shade it is still pleasantly cool. By the afternoon, it is dry and hot. People whip out their chap sticks or cold cream to stop the itching of dry-skin and dew cracks.
There is an interesting quality to the sunlight. The newly washed sun angles across the sky (never overhead like a blazing summer sun.) It has a quality of softness, a golden tint with soft highlights like a painting by an old Flemish master painter.
Photographs taken in summer are burnt out with the glare. Photos in mid monsoon are constantly interrupted by clouds driftingu00a0 endlessly from South West to North East.
The winter sun is difficult to see if one works in a smoked glass office and commutes in air-conditioned, sunscreened buses.
But, as the Beatles sang, 'Here comes the Sun King.' Go outdoors and experience it this Sunday.
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