of delhi's shivers that wait on the horizon

before the storm came the lull.
and before the chill came the dusty, muggy, sweaty and sticky clime.
a brief period of rainfall that led to multiple traffic jams and a million insects is now over.
what we face here is the intensity of heat reserved for the hotter months.
but i believe it is a warning sign, a sign that the coming months will be a worthy adversary, and that your best ally is only the old monk from mohan meakin castle.

the cold wind that blows through your jacket despite it promising a warmth reserved for the polar regions; the heavy fog that threatens to overpower the road while you drive; the heater that is about to melt its grills but the heat never seems to reach you; park your car outside and the remnants of a frozen night appear on the windshield as ice flakes; push the quilt to cover your legs and you discover a certain other part that now feels the chill; a frigid drive back in an auto's back seat through a city that has frozen by now, while you feel the pangs of envy witnessing a bunch of people crowding around a fire in their flimsy blankets; the early morning rays of sunlight that you desperately try to gather some warmth before the smog bounces back any hint of heat; sipping a mug of hot chocolate on your terrace, sitting in that comfortable couch you bought on the MG road, wrapped in a multi-hued shawl indigenous to hippie towns; gulping that hot alu-chaat on a cold evening amid the multi-storeyed office complexes; how the fingers automatically retract when the first drops of ice-converted-to-water falls on it....
to suck on that cigarette so that it gives you some warmth even though you know it's not going to give you any....
multiple swigs of the rum in an attempt to preserve your body from falling prey to hypothermia...
a cold nose...
frozen fingers....
a frozen world...

a vast tundra...where all the denizens move effortlessly into hibernation...
and the city sleeps....