Hot air

After September-October it rained almost every day and all the Londoners I knew cursed the rain. I enjoyed that rain a lot. No mud on the way, no fun slush and no fatigue after walking four or five miles. Someone said, how come you don't get tired of rain, I replied that I really appreciate that somewhere in the world it rains and it stays green forever.

Not only the rain, but the entire creation of London is upside down here. You have a foggy feeling, that something funny is felt in the mind. Clear skies washed by rain, cold mornings and evenings, and a clear atmosphere that can be seen for ten miles, and our fog is a curtain of fog that blinds the vision for a short time. If you wake up in the morning, the valley below Mahabaleshwari or Sinhagad is filled with mist. Then shall the sun rise, that rainbows appear on that mist, and for a little while so fleeing, the sun rises, that the mists disappear beyond the grass, and reflect the endless dewdrops of the sun. In the evening, if the fog spreads, the night also fades away, and the night sky shines with all the stars; But the London fog is something else. Before, the sky is not clear even for ten days of the year, the sky there never seems as high as our sky. Ever look up, (like a black and white roof draped over the whole city. Thousands of coal-fired London factories and millions of coal-fired stoves in London homes smoke day and night. Even if you walk barefoot inside the house, your feet turn black. If you touch any tree, your hands It becomes black. In this smoky atmosphere, fog spreads, that is, particles of coal invisible to the naked eye become visible. Darkness is visible to the eye and can be held in the hand. Such fog spreads over London at least once or twice a year. There is an atmosphere around the earth and we are at the bottom of it. Things were read about in geography books; but they experienced it first hand in the London fog. One can imagine what the creatures at the bottom of the sea must be feeling. The fog causes chaos. Boats crash into boats in British Bay. Cars crash on the streets. Children lose their way.

For several weeks in the winter, the daylight here is nearly twilight. In this partial light there is as much absence of light as there is of shadow. How many • leafless trees used to stand through various gardens; But no one wants to fall on the lower lawn. We have the dry sun and the shadow that clings to it. The asphalt road is so bright that the sun is blinding; But every walking man and running vehicle walks or runs with his shadow. Each lamp post casts a long shadow next to it. One side of each object is smooth and bright, while the other side is shadowy and sheltered. While traveling by fire train, in summer, while perching on the telegraph wires, birds are seen clinging to the pole exactly where the shadow of the pole falls. Pedestrians walk on the side of the road where the shadow of the houses falls. On the black moon of the dense shade under the tree, the spheres of bright light shine like pebbles; But there is not enough light for months to cast a shadow here.

One day I wandered from one park to another until I reached St. James's Gardens and watched the birds swimming in the pond. There was dim silver light everywhere. All of a sudden I felt miraculous, that the light was rising from below. I turned around again and looked up. Indeed the sky was cloudless. Although not completely black, there was no trace of the sun. A thin layer of ice was deposited on the water of the pool below and on the stone in between, and the light reflected from it spread everywhere. This made the light seem to rise from below. All colors appear blind in this particular light. Once upon a time the sun shines and that too falls on the spring-flowered meadows and green meadows, so that the colorful creation dances before the eyes; But still there is a difference between the colors of creation here and the colors of our creation. Here all the colors seem a bit dull and bland. As a thick shadow; But they seem to complement each other without standing out with their flamboyance.