The doorbell rang in the middle of a hot April afternoon in Kolkata.
It was yet another courier, the third of the afternoon.
The temperature was already inching towards 100 and the humidity was high. The family had settled in for a post-lunch siesta.
“As soon as it’s afternoon the bell rings non-stop,” grumbled my mother. “No-one can rest or work in peace,” I agreed.
Bills, packages, books, groceries, medicines - they kept coming, delivered by men on bicycles and motorbikes. Every time I opened the door the heat hit me like a sledgehammer. The streets were deserted. Even the street dogs were nowhere to be seen. Not a leaf stirred in the tree outside the house. I stood impatiently at the gate in the blazing sun, waiting irritably as the delivery person rummaged in his rucksack looking for our parcel. I wondered what it would have hurt to have had the package ready before he rang the doorbell.
Then I looked at the man. He had a handkerchief tied around his head. But he was still drenched. This was a few minutes of discomfort for me but it was a whole day’s work for him, all afternoon, probably every day, driving in the heat with a metal helmet on his head
“I hope you are drinking plenty of water,” I said lamely. He gestured towards the plastic bottle he was carrying. “What to do?” He said. “Just because it’s summer the deliveries don’t stop.”
In fact, chances are because it’s summer more of us are using services that require others to run around so as to allow us the luxury of being indoors. The grocery delivery apps, the food delivery apps, the errand running apps are all working overtime so we can keep our cool.
This summer we will need more of their services than ever. According to Business Today, last year peak power demand hit 243GW in September, an all time high. This year India’s power ministry is projecting it might hit 260 GW.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
Once the power supply was far short of demand. the power would go for minutes, sometimes for hours.If it went in the middle of a favourite television serial or a crucial football match, the curses would ricochet around the neighbourhood.
Power cuts or load shedding nights meant dragging a mattress onto the terrace, looking for the hint of a breeze. My sister and I invented stories about a ghost family who lived in the neem tree behind the house. When the lights suddenly came back on a cheer would echo through the neighbourhood as televisions would flicker back to life.
As power cuts became routine, people started investing in battery inverters and generators and every time the power went out, the generators cranked up. That rattling noise too became as much part of the city soundscape as its trundling trams and wheezing taxis.
But no-one talked about climate change and global warming. Summers were hot and sticky but we still looked for a few blessings of the Indian summer -, litchis, summer holidays, mangos.
These days power cuts are a distant memory in Kolkata. In fact, shops, malls, restaurants, homes are air-conditioned beyond anything any of us had grown up with. When the first air-conditioner arrived in our house we only had it in our parents’ bedroom. There were only a few special nights when it was deemed hot enough to turn the air conditioner on at night. the whole family piled into my parents bedroom. It was like a pajama party and I would feel guilty about hoping and praying some nights that it would be warm enough to be designated an “AC family night”.
Even after we had turned it off, my mother would scold us if we went in and out too much. “All the cold is escaping” she would say as if the cold was something the air conditioning genie caught and stoppered in a bottle.
But all the air-conditioning now, instead of making us forget about summer, somehow reminds us even more grimly about the heat outside. There are few places as freezing cold as the innards of an Indian mall at the height of summer. And the moment we step outside the heat hits us like an slap across the face.
Now we design our cities for air-conditioning. The International Energy Agency estimated last year that India’s demand just for running household air-conditioners will expand nine-fold by 2050 and outstrip total power consumption in all of Africa today.
The quaint rituals of the old summers have fallen by the wayside in a country that is seeing increasing heatwave events. But there are new rituals we can practice even as we shelter from the heat.
Offer water to the delivery person. Refill the water bottle of the man who comes to service the water filter. Put out a bowl of water for birds and stray animals.
It might not lower the temperature outside but a little kindness will lower the temperature inside now that our summers of discontent are here to stay.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW