Have you ever experienced Indian summers at mid noon? If your answer is still yes, then my article is dedicated to you. Although I am a regular worshipper of the Sun God, sometimes I think He should devote less of His divine energy that is brought to us by those beautiful white rays during daytime. His divine energy is so intense that the human kind has derived ways of harnessing it to run turbines and heavy motors. The energy is intense enough to help a streetdweller fry his omelette on the road and a well-to-do person run table fans to chill at home. The Sun God is a kind-hearted Lord with a good heart until you sin or irritate Him. In that case you are at the recieving end, exactly where we were that day.
Saturday 9:30am
It was a warm (hot), sunny (burning) and bright (enough to pierce your eyes) day.Being as lazy as possible I lay in bed wondering what made me give my name for that silly fest.
9:40am
My phone rang up
"Hello!!! Where are you? I have been waiting for you for the last an hour... if you don't turn up within ten minutes you will be able to see your doom today". It was my friend who had sincerely reached the location at the stipulated time before I got out of bed.
Being a loyal friend I jumped out of bed, sprinted through my morning rituals and finally sprinted to our meeting point. From there we started our long journey..... To the Kala Theatre.
10:30am
"Are you sure that you know the theatre?"
"It is ridiculous of you to ask me that question. Being born and brought up in this city you think I wouldn't know." Was my friend's reply when we were crossing The Nightingale Hospital for the third time. I tried pointing out that it was a little wierd to have a hospital with similar name and logo at every third turn, but she said she needed to concentrate. So she concentrated on the way while I concentrated on a physics problem to calculate the time required for the summer heat to liquify us.
Half an hour of intense concentration later we came to a very important conclusion. There was no theatre called Kala Theatre in that area or in the neighbouring area. A Google search revealed that there was no such theatre in the whole city.
11:00am
Frantic calls were made to those who we thought were smart enough to at least reach the venue. We were then enlightened about the name of the theatre which was Kala Ghar. But unfortunately for us in those days smart phones were a luxury and a "thing" that attracted envious glances from poor souls like us. So no Google maps to the rescue.
Time was ticking. It wasn't just the time of the commencement of the fest coming closer but the remaining of the required time for the sun to turn us into a warm thick chutney was getting lesser. You could see it in our sweat covered faces and stooping bodies. We crossed Nightingale Hospital for the fifth time(final time).
On a sultry morning like that we could barely see a soul who would speak to us. After a long walk we came to a junction which was manned by a lone traffic cop. If you believe in the Hindu Mythology and the concept of reincarnation they had probably got on the nerves of the Sun God in some past lives of theirs and continue to challenge Him everyday armed with masks, caps, handkerchief and sunglasses. They are the real unsung heroes of today, braving the cruel beautiful rays to prevent chaos in the area. So we believed that a hero of such calibre would be most capable of showing us the way.
So we walked over to the cop and asked him "Excuse me, could you please tell us the way to The Kala Ghar?"
"I am new here. I just joined duty last week. But if you go straight about twenty metres from here there is a junction where the traffic police might be able to help." He said with a sheepish smile.
Twenty metres did not appear to be a big deal. After all we took five rounds of The Nightingale Hospital. So we decide to go in search of help from a traffic cop who might be able to help.
We reached the junction. Cartoon characters who are shown as stuck in dry deserts with their heads drooping, bodies sagging and tongues sticking out for a drop of water made perfect sense to us. From afar we saw two white uniforms. Not one but two. We confirmed from each other's view points that it wasn't a mirage and our hopes grew higher. At least one of them must know the way. We straightened up as much as possible on our way to the junction.
There really were two of them. We went to them and asked them to help us with the way to Kala Ghar. The uniformed guy on the right pointed left while the uniformed guy on the left pointed right. We stared at their crisscrossed hands and looked up to them about to scream when we saw it above their heads. A signboard that read "Kala Ghar. Go straight. 50 m".
11:50am
Finally we reached the theatre. We were half limping, 98% in liquid state and our hair appeared to have been subjected to heavy dusting purposes.
Sunday 9:00am
High temperature accompanied by visit to a doctor.
Monday 1:00pm
Missed a class test.
.jpg "i liked this tree... it was very mysterious to me")
