One strange summer-time thought

It is a very hot day. As much as one expects heat in Indian summers, today is unreasonable. The roads are getting charred and leaves are turning crisp and dried. Some giant finger can take a pick of the choicest summer leaves, dip it in ketchup and eat.

What else can the giant have?

Yes, there are those vast cottony white spindles that look like froth on cool lassi. The giant can have that. There are some clouds that are slightly yellowish and perfectly rounded. The giant could help himself to one scoop of that honey-melon ice-cream. It will be refreshing – the icy, light, sweetness.

All that is good. But somewhere behind the tender lining of the pale, blue sky is clear, sweet, spring water. It’s cool and nourishing. The giant will quarter off a bit of the sky and press it to his mouth. The cool wetness will dribble through the cracks of his dry, parched lips and roll down his dusty neck. The water will gush about his tongue and hold it in rapture, such that the watery manacles will always sate the tongue; the ever-wet tongue that will not get pruned two minutes after the water is wiped away.

And when his thirst is quenched, the giant will be happy. He will be refreshed and aglow in an aquatic wash. The world, to him, will turn a cool, cucumber hue. All over the giant's face will be droopy moistness. Now, summer somnambulism will set in.

There will be a sleepy hunt for a shaded patch and cool grass. The giant will find it and lie gown, with one hand under the head and the other one plucking weeds or petals. What does it matter? Satisfaction is so pastel.

He will see the sky, all bulbous with the hidden sweet thirst quencher and think: Water is a performing artist.

That’s all with the giant.

My hands don’t reach the leaves.