Temperature hot, not spicy hot

Man, it is hot. It is so hot here that crows are rationing their squawks. It is so hot here that traffic light hawkers are pulling pages from their pirated copies of Barack Obama's autobiography to fashion makeshift umbrellas. It is so hot here that truck reverse muzak now plays "Hot in the City" instead of "It's a Small World". It is so hot it feels like my skin is melting from my bones, sliding off layer by layer.

We came back from nine days in Kerala where it was hot and humid beyond belief - or so we thought. When we landed at Mumbai airport, Kingfisher informed us the outside temperature was 30 degrees. At midnight.

Since then, two days ago, daytime temperatures have hovered close to the 40 degree mark, although inside our flat it's probably three to four more than that. Right now it's 29 at midnight. It is so hot I can't sit still for more than a few minutes at a time and keep getting up to douse myself in cold water. Right now, ice is my best friend. When we first took this flat in December we were warned we'd likely suffer in summer without air conditioning. I naively thought we could struggle through with ceiling fans. I now realise how utterly misguided that was.

This is not the worst of it, however. The worst is yet to come. Summer doesn't begin in earnest till next month, and after that comes the monsoon. That's basically 40 degree temperatures combined with rainfall so heavy it's horizontal.

Annoyingly, no one seems to dress appropriately for the heat. Bandra babes still get around in skinny jeans and long sleeved shirts or kurtis. No one else wears shorts or singlets. I'm starting to appreciate the practicalities of the salwar kameez, something I've avoided thus far as I don't like appearing in my pyjamas in public.

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