The Eighth summer…

March is heading towards its end, which will begin the reign of the eighth summer of the century. Air is blowing warm and warmer with fleeting days and a well known ‘exam heat’ can be felt more easily now. Last year, during these days, I was preparing for my final year exam and this year too, getting ready for first year of MA. However, it is not the real feel of ‘exam heat.’ During college days, when a warm wave of air brings dry leaves of backyard neem to you, when instead of thick reference books, printed notes and guides start attracting you, and when the calendar starts showing the rounds you made around the dates of examination more vividly, you start feeling a real ‘exam heat.’ Friends, their study updates play a vital role in preparation of exam, which I am missing this year. The eighth summer is showing different days. I am away from home after all.
Summer is my all time favorite as after the examination, you get bigger days to enjoy, you get long evenings to stroll, you get sound sleeps under blinking stars, and you get bright early mornings to refresh you. Nowadays, more than vacation, summer is all about personality development camps, adventure camps and sports training camps. For students of class IX and XI, it is no more an enjoyment as their preparations for board examinations are in full flow during summer. Even for class XII students, who are appearing for engineering or medical pre-admission tests, summer is a season of studies. In this way, many ignore all offerings of summer and set their attention to scorching summer noon. Well, they all are unfortunate, who do not enjoy the flavor of this season.
Summer bells ring in mid-February and it start feeling with March. Now, wind flows more desperate and warm. After freezing winter, this warm sensation gives pleasure. If winter’s color is green, summer says hello, with yellow. Trees start shedding yellow leaves and the meadows start forming yellow carpets to welcome the brighter mood Sun. Sparrows’ search for a proper place for their nests becomes more restless. Now, cows prefer to rest under shadows instead of having a few last instants of winter’s greenery. Afternoons turn silent and evenings lively. During these summer evenings, I used to study in the backyard on one of the three big neems. It was so pleasant to behold the yellow, orange, red shades of sun when it sets. But in eighth summer, sun sets behind a multi-stored building. I search for a sparrow searching a place for nest, and a cow resting under a tree shedding yellow leaves. But I am unable to find the same here. After all, I am away from home.
Here summer reveals itself through covered faces of bike-riders, people walking in summer coats and roadside cold drink shops. Afternoons are not quite, and instead of twits of birds resting on trees, we get houses filled with sounds of air coolers. Someone hardly notices stars in the sky, as it is full of artificial lightings. This is different summer. The eighth summer.