Season for Hope

Its that time of the year. Again. Hot-sticky-unbearable. Not to mention that this "time" is actually the better part of the year.

And this is the time when hope which is supposed to spring eternally in the human breast, fairly bounces in the Bengali breast. We hope that the sticky day will end in a cool breezy evenings. that there will be a magnificent Kaal boishakis to soothe our frayed nerves. And maybe even win in IPL3 (no, no not the IPL3 itself...but perhaps tonight's match against Delhi Daredevils?)!

It also means a lot of other things which we need not be hopeful about like tauk daal, teto daal, soothing dalnas and light curries, of aam pora sarbat, yogurt and the like. It is also the time for sweet mango chutney made from unripe mangoes! Aah!

And imagine my delight at the smallish mango tree in our office compound sprouting little green mangoes! My delight was shortlived...as a colleague pointed out a neat not so little wasp's nest among the branches. Hmm. But I am hoping to get a few without disturbing the wasps.

You can't see the wasp's nest...but it is there...lurking among the mangoes.

In the meanwhile, here are my recipes for Aam Pana and Lemon dal and Mango relish!

PS - Keeping my fingers crossed - mostly for KKR's win tonight and tomorrow I will concentrate on the wasp's going away.

The Torrid Zone

It has become unbearable. Already. The temperature has been varying between 35 to 39 this past week. And April has only just begun. I look up the exact location of Kolkata on Wikipedia {don't want to do the daab on taal gach trick again} and find that we miss both the tropics Cancer and Capricorn and though we miss Equator as well, we are closer to it than the tropics. However, {aha} we are in what is called the Torrid Zone. Sounds ...umm.. interesting? Well actually that means it is the hottest part of the earth.

The high levels of pollution {my favorite kolkata rant}, combined with high humidity means by the end of the day, we are covered {would go so far as to say, we are actually weighed down by it} a thick layer of grime.

And yet, "sultry tropics" would mean people lounging around in huge cane chairs under slow ceiling fans drinking some thing cool in a tall glass. Must be all those Raj stories. How silly to think romantically of the tropics while sweating it out, with no respite in sight? Afterall, its onlyApril, with May, June, July, August, September, October ahead and the Kolkata summer might stretch into perhaps even November.

For now, I sit back and imagine the coolness this morning, in Gurgaon where there was a a hail storm, and how V must have rushed to get her camera to take the photo and email it to me:

Looks like a fish, doesn't it?