City battered by heat, poor more than rich
Even as his employers disappear into their air-conditioned home or zoom out of the gates in their cool sedans, Shiva Kumar, a 64-year-old guard, has always been satisfied with a table fan to tackle Delhi’s fierce summer. Not this year. “I came from my hometown in Orissa in 2005 and since then have been working here as a guard.
Every year I just have this table fan to deal with Delhi’s heat, but this year is different. It’s so hot that even the usual tactic of wiping oneself with a wet cloth is not helping,” said an exasperated Kumar.
“With no option left, I have requested my employer for an air cooler,” Mr Kumar said. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — America’s climate agency which monitors global weather using satellites — the first four months in 2010 have been sizzling hot and north India has not been this warm in the last 100 years. With the mercury level refusing to fall below the 40 degree Celsius mark — zooming well past the average —and breaking records of past many years, it’s mostly the common man and people out on the streets of this city of 16 million people who are literally facing the heat of the matter and devising ways to tackle it. Ramya, a flower seller who carries her two-month-old baby in her arms while hopping from one vehicle to the next in traffic signals, said: “It is hot, very hot, but what can a poor woman like me do? My aim is to sell the flowers before they wilt in the heat and earn just enough to feed myself and my child.” “These days, however, I have stopped venturing out on the roads in the afternoon. That time I either sit under a tree on the footpath or go to a park. I also wrap myself in a wet towel and keep wiping my baby with it,” she added. For those commuting by public transport, the heat has given rise to an different regime before stepping out for work. —IANS
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