Summer days...

Summer days bring so many memories to mind. There was always something very special about summer. For one thing it was holiday time - 2 whole delicious months of holidays. Summer times meant dinners out on the lawn. Light from the verandah streaming out giving the lawn a fairytale look. If we had watermelons for dinner, there would be watermelon lanterns on the table. The lawn was watered morning and evening, so it was nice and cool. Feet on wet grass, lovely cool feeling...The fragrance of summer flowers, especially the Raat ki Rani and jasmines, would fill the air. The 'girls' would pin a sprig, or string of these in the hair...exotic feeling...Crepe myrtle, mango and acacia trees cast their magical spell. Sometimes we'd pack dinner, and drive to the Ridge, where we'd spread mats under a spreading gul mohur and have dinner in the lovely summer breeze looking down at the lights twinkling below. After dinner, our beds would be laid out on the lawn, with mosquito nets, and we used to go to sleep looking at the stars and the moon. We'd try and identify the North Star,the Great Bear, and the Orion. We'd pretend we were part of the Milky Way...When day broke, so that we didn't have to wake up too early, our bedspreads would be draped on the mosquito nets to shield us from the morning sun. Up by 7, the whole long lazy day stretched before us. Sometimes, very early in the morning, we'd pack sandwiches and take our dogs and walk to the two small hills close by, called Bada Shimla and Chhota Shimla. We'd climb to the top, watch the sun rise, have our snack and run down the slope, and come home to a good breakfast. Of course we had to study till 10 every morning, then it was reading and practicing the piano till lunch. The dogs happy to have us at home would refuse to be tied up outside and would stay with us indoors. Of course we'd pretend that they were protecting us from pirates and robbers! Snooze after lunch, and then from 4 o'clock onwards, after tea, it was just play, play and play. We'd be on our cycles going round and round, or racing, especially down the slope. Sometimes we'd play hide-and-seek, or robbers and police, on our cycles. We had the whole campus to play in! Sheer bliss!! Summer meant endless glasses of lemonade or orangeade ice cubes, or when we grew older, iced tea. Sometimes, the big garden tank would be filled with water and we were allowed to jump and play in it. How many games we invented!!! Later when we shifted to the duplex, we used to sleep on the terrace. The terrace used to be flooded and we would wade through the water to get to our beds! what fun. We thought we were in gondolas and wove all kinds of fantasies around our beds. Dinner was always out on the small lawn on the side of the house. The vegetable garden at the back had the most wonderful fruit trees. Bliss to just pluck the fruits and eat them. It was slurping on juicy mangoes, and planting the seeds. It was also gorging on wood apple, mulberries, pummelos and grapefruits. If we managed to steal a raw mango, then it meant smuggling some chilli powder and salt from the kitchen, and eating the mango with this mix, eyes and nose streaming... The fruit trees were ideal too for climbing up and settling down with our story books, completely lost, till someone yelled at us to go inside. Sometimes we'd imagine we were living the Swiss Family Robinson life! I can still get the smell of mint! so much of it used to grow near the tank. Predominant among the flowers were the ginger lilies and gardenia. Wonderful, wonderful flowers. I always wondered how in the hot summer, the brightest flowers bloomed - gul mohur, yellow acacia, flame of the forest. We'd use the stamens from a red flower (I'm not sure of the name) to have fights. There would be only these gorgeous red flowers on the tree - hardly any leaves. The stamens had long curved stems with round heads, and we used to curve the stems of our stamens around the stems of our 'enemy's' stamens, and try to yank off the head! of course the one who managed the most be-headings was the winner! or we'd use the petals of another flower (don't know the mane, but they hang down in colorful bunches), to stick onto our nails. For that game, we'd be fashionable ladies! It was the only time we expected chauvinism from our brothers. The rest of the time we expected to be a part of all games! Sometimes we'd fix up a little space in the garage and pretend it was in turns a school, a home, a cave, or just somewhere we could hide when we had our squabbles! There'd be times when we enacted all the Enid Blyton stories we could. Happy, carefree, summer days!!