Talking about summer is a joy.

Oh, I know some of you wonder what is so joyful about the time of the year when the heat threatens to melt the ice, the tar and even the brain in spite of the thick skull. I know the frustrations of having to get out of home on a blazing summer afternoon.

Summer conjures up the picture of unbearable heat, the trickle of sweat rolling down the back, the constant burning sensation on the skin and the alarming thought that we’re witnessing the height of global warming that would destroy the world in the not-too-distant-future.

But to some of us old buzzers, memories about summer comprises of tender coconut water, Palmyra fruit and musk melon; the relaxed game of cricket on the dry riverbed; Friday evenings at the ancient temple built of pure granite that had four giant towers facing up to four different roads.

They say childhood is a phase of life that we all have to grow out of, but there’re moments when we yearn for the innocent simple existence, when worries were all about the next game we should play and how quickly the summer vacation was coming to an end like loose change in the pockets of a wastrel prancing around the carnival ground.

Each summer, as the harsh streaks of sunlight pierces every pore of the skin and plasters the shirt to the body in that sickly wetness, my mind boards that invisible time machine and travels down the memory lane to the unforgettable vacations spent in my hometown Virudhachalam.

The time machine usually lands in the bustling junction where the arterial Bazaar Road cuts through the Bridge Road that becomes the famous Cuddalore Road beyond the bridge across the dry river.

People thronged the tea shops displaying the giant pictures of M. G. Ramachandran (the actor-turned first minister of my state often compared with Reagan) and discussed the days political development. Arguments in these corner shops would reach fever pitch when the elections drew closer.

I’d get off the time machine, wait for the crowded buses and tractors laden with green sugarcane sticks to pass and cross the road. My focus would be on the shop displaying the latest issues of magazines and the day’s newspapers. Stacked on the corner of the shop were the latest crime thrillers in Tamil. The shopkeeper, a friend of my uncle, wouldn’t complain if I jumble the paperbag editions of writers like Rajendra Kumar, Pattukottai Prabhakar, Rajesh Kumar, the man hailed as the king among the thriller writers, Devi Bala and a few new comers.

I’d pick up a couple of Rajesh Kumars and walk straight out; I need not worry about paying since uncle would’ve taken care of that. On the second left on the Bazaar Road, adjacent to the police station was the house I spent at least five or six of my summer vacations. The street was usually quiet, except for the bawling of the ice candy man and a few other hawkers. I wouldn’t notice any of them if I was too absorbed in the page-turner.

Nearly 33 years later, 27 of which I’ve spent as a blind man, technology has made it possible to read books again. I endlessly boast of how I could read a book like “The Lust For Life”, a mammoth 1150-page biography of Vincent Van Gogh, thanks to Kindle Reader, VoiceDream (the iPhone app to read ebooks) and Audible (audiobook app), all on my iPhone 7.

But missing is the quiet street, the occasionally chatty neighbours who like to know what you’re reading and the elderly men who lay sprawled on the easy chairs in front of their houses drawing the fresh breeze from the river beyond the line of trees at the far corner of the street and the temple.

There was something so fresh and healthy about that breeze, about that food and that place. It’s true that my time machine transports me to that age, and to that time. I feel the coolness of that breeze in the depths of my skin, but my heart goes heavy when reality brings me back to the present with unrelenting urgency.
It’s, after all, just a memory. I sigh heavily, thinking how quickly the three decades have passed and how life itself seems so different now.

But then, isn’t life all about change?