Day III and IV in Bhubaneswar

The weather here in Bhubaneswar has been very cooperative and since my arrival has turned salubrious by summer standards. With thunderstorms happening every other day either at my place or closer to where I live, it has driven the scorching heat away. However the humidity persists. Never ever the sound of distant thunder this afternoon sounded like music to my ears and the cooler wind that followed more comforting.

Yet the time between 10 AM till 5 PM was incredibly hot, the sun spitting fire from the sky and the dust laden wind blowing prickly heat on your face.  I rode a bike to the local bank and parked it outside in sun. At the bank, the girl in front of me in the line (called queue here) was talking in Hindi with the man at the teller counter. Both of them, apparently pure bred Odias were conversing in PAKHALA KHIA HINDI (Heavy Odia accented Hindi spoken after eating stomachful of water soaked rice, a popular Odia summer dish). And literally so, as the man inside his counter was talking in pure, unadulterated Odia to someone over phone about eating PAKHALA for lunch in this hot weather. The girl leaned over her side and started talking to someone in chaste Odia in a soft but audible voice - "EI MAA, TU JANICHU NA, MO BOYFRIEND TA EBE MO KATHA SUNUNI (Oh my dear, do you know this ? My boyfriend is no more listening to me)". Done with their chit chat, she took a break to collect her cash. But knowing the current trend, I found it hardly surprising that two Odias, living in the heartland of Odisha are talking to each other in Hindi. Real Odia Asmita (pride) !

After finishing my work at the bank I swept off the beads of sweat from my forehead, picked my nose to clear off all dark shoot as the tropical sun was peaking right over my head. When I started the bike and put my heavy bottom on the broad, black seat I thought I went back on a time machine to medieval times when in feudal Europe a losing aspirant for Kingship was made to seat on a hot, metal throne as part of torture. I suffered similar fate as I grinned my teeth in pain with my ass getting baked. Someone should have taken the photo of my face at that moment and put it on YouTube. It would have instantly got a million plus hits.

From hot seat, soon I was back to the comfort zone of my house, reading a lot of horse shit on the local vernacular newspaper. Drank a full glass of cold water to prevent my pee from turning into mustard oil. Little after noon when I took shower I found the water soothingly lukewarm, heated by solar energy. We don't have any solar panels or anything fancy like that. The overhead tank water was warmed by pure and natural sunlight. Felt so cool to take bath in this environment friendly environment. No electricity or natural gas was needed to bring the water to a lukewarm temperature. No boiler or geyser was operated, water only warmed by pure and unadulterated sunlight. But mention of this earth friendly story only elicited lukewarm response from most.

After finishing my fish lunch followed by a plate of sweet mangoes, with siesta in my mind I scanned the remaining pages of  the local Odia newapaper. As always there were odd but amusing news items. One such eye catching news was - "EKA TARAFA PREMARU JHIA RA PUSRUSHA BABDHU KU BIFALA PREMIKA KA CHHURA MADA (One sided affair of a frustrated lover of a girl led him to murder her boyfriend). Other news were boring enough to make me drowsy. Soon I could feel my eyelids refusing to stay open. Didn't realize when sleep overcame me until around 3 PM when I woke up feeling hot and thirsty, sweating. The power just went caput. The poor newspaper lying on my side, the smiling face of Odisha's Chief Minister Mohan Majhi on the cover page torn from the middle inadvertently by my elbow when I slumped on it, thanks to my deep siesta.

The power outage continued. I felt like a fish out of water, lying supine like the horizontal version of Sri Chaitnanya Mahaprabhu on hot bed getting barbecued. The inverter driven fan hardly helped as it kept on circulating hot air. It's 5 PM, still no sign of electricity. Sprinkle some salt and pepper over me I am a great grill. Another couple of hours I could have become a SUKHUA or dried fish, an Odia delicacy. Thankfully the power came back only after I sat in the balcony to cool myself with bursts of cooler air from thunderstorms close by.

Another positive outcome from this hot and muggy weather is it has kept mosquitoes at bay. The tiny blood suckers haven't vanished, rather been in hibernation to escape from the heat. Whatever a few of them I encounter in my room I mercilessly clap them to death. Mosquitoes are known to have amazing resilience. Non of these mosquito repellants are effective against them. The best option is mosquito net, but I feel terribly claustrophobic inside it. Preventing them from entering your room and their manual extermination of those present is the optimal solution. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with the mosquito menace this time. More later...