In the summertime, when the weather is fine...

Warm (make that "a bit too warm") days of summer shall invariably usher in alongside them a certain gleeful sense of freedom and an utterly deceptive belief in the endlessness of free time and the non-existence of any such entity as work.

To the schoolkid lost to listlessness amidst textbooks since last June (spare the pittance passed off as Winter hols) struggling through the culmination of the past year in a dreadful set of examinations, the onset of summer presents yet another blissful couple of months of reprise, of play in the streets despite the murderous heat of the sun overhead, of endless hours of lazing around, losing time to nothingness.

And to most, the vacations of summer mean visits to faraway lands with family and friends, experiences and adventures that last long since they are encountered in memories and photographs.

And again, what is a summer without those divine drops of nectar encased in tender yellow skins, those heavenly embodiments of pure and pristine sweetness, those fruits with which trees and shops alike overflow come May, those mangoes whose sheer awesomeness have earned them such majesty, if you shall excuse the word, that the Constitution recognises them as our national fruit?

 But as with all else, practices and anticipation necessarily change with age, and as we progress along the wispy track of time that presents us with neither a vision of what lies a couple steps ahead, nor leave to take a couple steps back and stride a second time that very path, the perception of summer as a redemption of all the nothingness one missed carrying out the rest of the year fades away into an acquired dread of the heat, as we leave behind us these as but mere memories of a childhood that once existed and in which they once existed.

It is said that to sound too nostalgic too frequently is to anchor oneself to mellow reminiscences of one's past, encouraging in the impressionable mind an urge to perceive present events as inferior to those of years ago, thence leading to derivation of less than optimal pleasure and satisfaction from occasions of today. The author, while acknowledging the rather poor quality of this article, does not wish to fall into that particular trap.

So as jolly good peoples of a pretty blue and green piece of rock orbiting an orange ball of fire, let us, with all merriment, bask in the glory of divine sunshine and rejoice or lay in sloth, as you please, and relish those treasures that summer alone may bring (in spite of the heat, that is). As far as holidays go, there is none better than the dark knight of Yukon to have the last say.

P.S.: About the title, its from a certain song.