BENGALURU: The coming of summer in Bangalore always seems so very sudden. Even up to the first week of February, everyone still has their quilts out and the ceiling fans are quite still through the night.
We don’t need heating, but certainly don’t need any cooling either. Then quite suddenly, within a couple of weeks, it gets so very dry and so very hot. The winter just passed has had so many Bengalureans connecting back to how Bengaluru used to be, the long, pleasant weather causing reminiscences about winters past and how wonderful it is to have a taste of that old Bengaluru weather yet again.
Now, even though it is not even March, places in the city where all the trees are gone and it is just another steel and concrete mess, temperatures are already above 35 degrees. People around Bangalore are likely making the transition from quilts to summer blankets very quickly this week.
Relationships are quite often like that in how the mood of it changes rapidly. Let’s say the beautiful Bengaluru winter is like the honeymoon period of any relationship. It is pleasant, comfortable and there is a lot of space to just chill and be with each other. When it gets over, life moves on into some kind of general routine, and there are times of connectedness and others when it is not so much. Then, quite unexpectedly, we sometimes get a longish second honeymoon – like our longer and more pleasant winter that just passed.
After many years, there comes again a time when there is a strong sense of that connection, there is joy in being together, love in the air, fond smiles and affection overflowing – and then, in a manner of weeks, it dissipates and we are back to humdrum relating, as if the cool winter is over and the harsh summer has set upon us already with barely any springtime in between.
Either we are like Bengaluru where things get dry and dreary, or we are like Leh-Ladakh where we get far too cold and distant after brief summers of joy. Can relationships be in a state of forever pleasantness like, maybe, Hawaii? Can the honeymoon last forever? It is the rare relationship that can sustain pleasantness right through. (The author is a counsellor at Inner Sight)