So spring is here. The winter's last biting cold was felt yesterday in my bedroom window, which I had left open unknowingly. I also hear the sound of the cuckoo and sundry other birds. I like their sweet sound and I have written a poem which is here somewhere on my poetry blog.
With spring the heat will start. Prickly heat. Stabbing the skin with a million pin pricks. Then summer will come. The scene will change into a desertscape, the throat will parch from want of water. I will drink more water because I can't drink aerated water. Thirst will consume, thirst will parch, thirst will dehydrate. Aerated drinks are bad for health, doctor said. The doctor is a kind man, but I know the pressures he is under. So many patients to see that he can't take a personal interest in everyone. He is also under pressure from the medicine companies to perform, meaning to prescribe more medicines. Also, from specialists to refer patients to them. After all, he (or his parents) have paid a huge amount to see him through college. A medical admission costs around Rs 5,000,000 (Five million rupees) in a private college.
In India we have institutionalised all corruption. That's why our engineers and doctors rebel so much and take to other professions. What does an educated graduate see before him, when he knows his education was itself a big act in corruption? There's disillusionment, disappointment with life.
I digress. Summer in India is a bad time. The rivers dry, the well grow shallow, the anxious wait for the rain starts. Temperature in the interiors shoots up to 48 degree C, I am told. You can't walk in the sun after 9 a.m. or you will be fried like an egg.
Wish you, dear reader, a happy Holi (the festival of colours, which is today)!
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