Hot, humid and still cool.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

If it’s August in Delhi, then it has to be insufferably humid and burning. The overcast sky traps the broiling heat and the city becomes a sponge. There’s no breeze in the sticky air, and no reprieve under the trees. For people on the street, it’s like being perpetually in a steam bath. They don’t just bear with the weather, but also have to wear it. Sweat-soaked clothes cling to the skin. Black underarm stains compromise dignity. The absence of an air-conditioner causes utter wretchedness. The body doesn’t cool off even at night.

To makes the month gloomier, major fires erupted in the colonial-era Connaught Place and the Mughal-era Chandni Chowk. The atmospheric Embassy restaurant in Connaught Place’s D-block too was damaged by a fire caused by an electrical short circuit.

It was during one such sweltering afternoon that The Delhi Walla came across a dog lying immersed in a cement tub filled with cool water, next to a public tank in west Delhi’s Tilak Nagar. The placid water reflected the tree leaves overhead. Like a diva, the wet dog seemed unperturbed, untouched and quite composed. He was the only happy child of August.

Like a diva

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