Tales of a hot summer afternoon

With my daughter back home for the vacations during the summers, we did quite a bit of travelling by the metro for a project that she was pursuing. It was a fun time for both of us as we travelled in wrong directions, overshot stations that we had to disembark at, got down at stations where the metro deposited us unceremoniously only to realise after much twiddling of thumbs that we were supposed to change platforms! Walking at snail slow pace sometimes at the interminable connecting links and at other times gleefully racing up the escalators to catch the metro only to have the doors shut in our faces!   

So, when a couple of days back I had to go to the Taj for tea I asked my daughter to join me for some more metro adventures but she declined as she didn’t want to miss her gym session. So, there I was…enjoying myself in the cool ambience of the metro on a hot Delhi afternoon. The sunshades added another layer of distance from the heat outside and I was seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, quite literally. 

And then my station that was the closest to the hotel arrived. I got down only to be greeted by waves of heat and walked outside still quite nonchalantly to book a cab. I thought just a few minutes of heat and I could glide into the cool comfort of an air-conditioned cab. But alas as I stood there trying to book a cab there was a technology glitch for the destination could just not be booked. The desperation to book the cab was now beginning to run faster than the sweat running down my face. 

As the rose-tinted glasses came off, a few autos stopped by asking if I needed a ride. No, bhaiya! No, bhaiya! I can’t very well roll up to the Taj in an auto. The thought quickly construed an image that social nightmares are made of and even more quickly I called my husband, who of course was in an office call. With all the interest reserved for a pesky housefly, he handed over the phone to my knight in shining armour – our daughter, saying see what she wants. She, of course, wanted a cab to be booked! But between the whooshes of the traffic whooshing by and an erratic Internet connection, she was not too audible. 

The daughter was quite engrossed in the climax of a series on an OTT Platform and let us say none too pleased either at this untimely interruption. However, realising that this problem was best dealt with fastest, she booked a cab and sent me the number to handle the rest myself. But when I tried to call the number of the driver, the app did not allow me to do so since the booking was not done from my number. So, the daughter was again called between the whooshes of traffic, the heat, dust and sweat as we tried to establish my geo-position and she remotely connected me to the driver of the car standing not ten paces away from me. Finally with a sigh of thanks, I sank into the car drenched in sweat and tried to repair a non-existential make up. Anyways the more immediate concern was to appear cool and collected and uncrumpled so I sat in front of the AC turned on to full blast to dry myself off. The AC was pretty good as a drier but not so effective as an ironing agent, but then we can’t have it all. 

As I dragged myself into the hotel, I felt one of my heels say something, being not pleased either at dragging me across town on a hot afternoon. It made its displeasure felt and silently rebelled. Smiling to the maître d’hôtel, with a namaste I mentally pleaded with my heel…not now, not here. But it was an argument I was not fated to win. My heel did not want to lug me around anymore and quite firmly put its foot down. I greeted my hosts with more namastes and smiles while mentally requesting my heels to walk those last few inches to a comfortable sofa and no more after that. I was quite over the moon to accomplish those last few steps safely. Only my heels’ happiness could have paralleled mine!

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