Still Summer in the National Capital

When my plane was going on a spin yesterday from Bhatinda to Meerut I could see from up above that the North Indian plain was parch dry. Summers are brutal in this part of the country and I was welcomed into Delhi with the hottest day of the season with temperatures crossing 45 degrees Celsius. The monsoons don’t get here till June 29! Poor Delhites have to bare this inferno for another long month.

But there’s of course another side to the summer in this city. For starters, the tree-lined avenues of Lutyens Delhi change colour with the flowering of the trees. The city is beautiful from the comfort of an air-conditioned car. There’s a lot less traffic as schools are shut and many of the bureaucrats and public servants make their annual trip to the Himalayas and exotic foreign destinations.

And the days are substantially longer than they are in most other parts of the country. I woke up at 5 am, thinking it was well past 8. The evenings stretch well past 7:30. The season is still good for early risers who want to get some fresh air and take some pictures of the numerous monuments before the rest of the city wakes up.