#scurf 108: an ode to the good old, environment-friendly air cooler

and the cool times, sweet climes and mirthful chimes it has led to

Writers, recluses and creative types are known to find inspiration in odd places, among not so commonplace things. As a kid its even more interesting as the mind wanders, looking for refuge from the incessant mundanity of everything around. During my childhood I sought part of this refuge, especially during the summer season, in the presence of a whirring, overwhelmingly noisy air cooler.

The gentle cadence of its presence, the magnanimity of its rhythms were a salve to my bruised jangled being. I was a painfully quiet child, often hounded for being so still. Among relatives, cousins, classmates, I would find myself extremely rigid, unable to move, emotionally disconnected and physically uncomfortable. The summer months were even worse. With April a fresh batch of school classes would start and bring along a torrent of worries about having to deal with new teachers, new classroom spaces, new faces. As the beautifully ventilated classrooms would protect us all from the heat, it was the afternoon return home that scorched our beings.

The sun at its potent best would be drying up our beings, sucking the fluids out of us as our heads fried up under the tin-shed covered cycle rickshaws. The walk from the school gate to the rickshaw stand, the tension of finding it, the nervousness of finding that one rickshaw just in time — all these would cumulatively add up to the heat. As a kid (even as an adult) I’m one of those who perspire more than needed. The resultant exhaustion by the time I reached home by 2:30 in the afternoon would be immense, to say the very least.

After washing up, as my governess would lay out lunch I would shoot a beseeching look in her direction. She knew what that meant — either I needed sliced onions with lunch or that I wanted to sit in the room with the air cooler turned on. The machine when cranked up, would swiftly produce a refreshing and steady draught, puncturing the heat in the room and lifting my spirits. With its gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) whirring serving as a background score to my existence, I would proceed with my evening. Then reading, writing for school homework, snacking, napping, everything would become far easier.

The air cooler’s breeze meant a steady accumulation of reliefs. In its presence despite the torrid summer heat outside, the air cooler offered me a sense of a life outside the heat. It meant an aggregation of small conveniences, seemingly little details and that we could (literally) bask in them. Burying all my worries in the sound of the cooler, even sneaking in cigarettes, surreptitious phone calls to friends and scrolling aimlessly on facebook. The endless gust of coolth from the cooler layering the entire room, house, with its distinct freshness, with its smell of petrichor in the arid endless north Indian summer.

The movie that comes close to showing how a palatial north Indian house with a cooler would look like is Bareilly Ki Barfi. No sweat, no freezing rooms, no excruciating summers — once the cooler was on I would drift into a mental oasis of calm, of being alone at one with myself. During the daytime the cooler was accompanied by TV hours, or eating a hunk of watermelon or cubes of muskmelon. There was also drinking water from a mitti ki surahi.

Mind you, in remembering those days, I am not romanticising the misery of my childhood, or glorifying the endless financial strains the cooler was a creation of. The cooler, the surahi, the watermelon hunks were all familiar clutter, condiments for a modest middle class life. Even today I can be clear-eyed about their utility quotient, the sublimity in their economy and the emotional refuge they provided (at least to me) from my little life’s perineal curveballs.

Those nights in the cooler were as good as summer escapades, a short trip to the hills, a way to get away, far far away from the great Indian summer. During those nights I would spend hours in that waking-dreaming-writing-thinking space. Eyes open, or glued to the ceiling fan, I would detach, remove and uproot myself from my immediate environs and float into an in-between ether like space. My mind would wander off to a place where it would be raining and where the rooms of the house would be packed with laughter and conversation. This dream-space cave was synonymous with the air cooler for all 17 summers I spent in the small north Indian town, sheltered from the blistering heat.

Last week, I was sitting at home watching Barfi in the afternoon. As the movie plodded on in its hilly, wintery climes, I felt the back of my throat dry up, the wall behind the bed’s headboard heat up and a slow crawl of summer seep into the room. I closed the windows, bolted the door, spread the curtains. Nothing stopped the heat from seeping in. The North India summer’s brilliant 2pm incandescence was soon illuminating every corner of my room, my bed and before long, my body was writhing with dryness and heat. The fact of that alone was so tiring, scary and hurtful. I checked my phone 2.30pm and the temperature 42 degrees. I opened the curtains to see how still the outside visage was, bathed in a mellowed yellowness, seeming to glow, but only burning. I rang up the local electrical appliances store and asked about the season’s coolers. Within the next three hours unable to stop myself, when the sun was still frying the earth’s ends, I left the house to purchase the appliance.

Outside the world was chirpy, bursting with life let loose after a heat attack. Everyone seem charged, slightly inspired, hazy from all the afternoon heat still radiating from the asphalt around. I bolted out from the autorickshaw, and placed a request for one cooler within ten minutes. Observing the various shapes and strengths they came with, I tried to envision where I would place it in our house. It would look good near the drawing room window, the mere thought stirred me up as I stared up at one of the sample pieces soiled but looking ever so gracious against the setting sun. The little play of light bowled me over.

Another three hours later as the cooler came home, I felt its giant plastic body under the dryness of my palm. The washing machine whirred in the other balcony as I filled up the water tank of the cooler and watched it overflow. The tank overflew more than I had thought it would, and it took me far longer to tidy the mess up. But I could already feel the lightness engulf me. Nights I assumed would not be as dreary and hopeless. I dreamt how I would watch TV, the volume cranked so high, to nullify the noise of the cooler’s motor. I dreamt up mornings of lethargy, induced by a good night’s sleep. I remembered how ages ago meandering kids, wandering adults and perspiring house-helps had all found hope and solace in front of the cooler in my parents’ house. And after all these years, I was happy to experience, that the cooler was just as efficient, unfailing in the comfort it elicits.

With the cooler around, several corners of the house lit up. It lent a lived-in quality to the otherwise somnolent crannies. The house oozed character. If back at home the cooler worked as a ramshackle extension of our crumpled lives, in the Delhi of 2022 it holds a pride of place in our otherwise always harried lives. In my childhood house the cooler blended in with the detailing, just like other devices that appeared to be as old as us. Now it shone alongside the varnished furniture flanking it. If earlier it bore a resemblance to the ageing bits of our house, occupied for so many years, now it stood out as a recent addition.

Before, it added to the rough finish of our house, but now it papered over the emptiness that comes with changing too many houses and having too little furniture. Earlier the cooler gave a crammed and rough-and-tumble character, now it added depth to the house. Now it is more decorative than just being a plain adornment in a forgotten corner of the house. And in that it nourishes our beings, sullies our summers and fortifies our houses against the torrid April 43 degrees summers we are now living through. And in a way it also holds an answer to our prevailing climatic conditions. In its resilience and conservation, the cooler consumes a lot less energy and keep the house cooler for a much, much longer time. The low-energy consumption is definitely not an answer to the Mays and Junes of 48 degrees, but it sure can help us out in the starting months of March April. And at this time, that too is a welcome alternative to air conditioners.

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Recent publications:

1. Anees Salim’s Latest Takes Us Back in Time: https://desibooks.co/desibooksreview-2-anees-salims-latest-takes-us-back-in-time/

2. When My Indian Parents Went Online: https://popula.com/2022/04/11/when-my-indian-parents-went-online/

3. Leaving Home Meant Losing My Mother Tongue: https://electricliterature.com/leaving-home-meant-losing-my-mother-tongue/