Winter Summer

There is so little we can speak of without offending or confusing each other it is my feeling we should just talk about the weather Not that the weather canrsquot be contentious too although not so much as Vijay Mallyarsquos sorry I meant Narendra Modirsquos sometimes I get confused because of the suits and overwhelming white hair and fiddling while burning stuff Wharton abortion It seems people somehow find it hard to compute Mr Modirsquos growth story with his genocideisapassionateresponsetolifestory and feel those nice golden growth coins come only with one side Quite different from the Met department as evinced by their last message in which they announced ldquoSummer is here but winter has not yet gonerdquo Illustration Amit Bandre This is not out of character The Met department usually speaks in complex codes especially around the monsoon mdash saying it is here when it is actually there and then suddenly the other way round Itrsquos possible there are hidden messages to be decoded here but thatrsquos another story Like those who believe in aapro Gujarat growth story I too believe that the Met department knows that we canrsquot handle the real truth about the rains Which is that they will be there but that perhaps all rain is not just rain like all growth is not just simply growth without a how and wherefore and that just like there is rain in Andheri West while Andheri East is dry so too growth may be unevenly distributed on two sides of the same shiny highway of progress So what the Met department doesnrsquot tell us they do for our own good and secure future I trust Maybe they are like a strong father figure who doesnrsquot want us to bunk work simply because a few thousand people of a community were killed sorry I mean because therersquos going to be some monsoon flooding No I donrsquot think thatrsquos the same as fascism Is it Itrsquos just that like with all oracular utterances there is an aspect of samajhne vale samajh gaye jo na samjhe are living in the past Anyway this time the Met department clearly feels we should handle a complex story Because itrsquos not as if winter goes today and summer comes tomorrow na There is a long changing of the guard between cold cold heart and hot hot growth a smooth crossfade you do not notice although you know it is there between the pyjamas and the pants A cross fade may feel like one track where there are really two sort of like life and death murder and wealth The success of a success story lies in how deftly you handle the switch as Mr Modi is figuring out People say at such moments you get strawberries and mangoes at the same time in the market It can be hard to choose between the Red of the strawberries and the Saffron of the mangoes sometimes Sure your skin prickles when you are out when you feel two winds blowing at the same time pretending to carry the same answer On the threshold of the changeover you get that feeling like maybe therersquos a trick abroad or like you are forgetting something very important Ya could be your umbrella could be a pogrom It may be hard to put your finger on it at the time mdash it is easy to forget winter when summerrsquos here to imagine winter wonrsquot be back But that would be silly Because you know the weather changes only for a while before it goes back to being its other self Paromita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at wwwparodevicom The views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paperu00a0