“It’s going to be hot”

183 | Kanniyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India | A warm Indian summer

The southern tip of India

You warned me and I ignored you. I swept aside every comment. After all, had I not already confronted deserts in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Oman? In the Gulf, with so little rain and no clouds, the sun shone out from above and reflected up from the white sand below. But the air was not humid there; the sun didn’t feel so haunting, so inescapable. I could manage. I never got woozy.

However, on weak and woozy legs after a hot day on the bicycle, I visited the very bottom of India. And all I could do was slump. Slump, mope and sulk. I brooded about the God Damn Heat. Feeling gloomy, I lay with my feet up under the 133-foot rock statue of Swami Vivekananda, trapped inside my self-pity.

The Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal meet at Kanniyakumari. From here, the sun rises and sets over the seas. For this reason, and because it’s the south of the subcontinent, Kanniyakumari is a holy place and a major attraction for Indian tourists (I saw no other Westerners). 

I watched the waves of the three seas as I lay shiftless from within an ocean of tourists. Wandering families with eight or ten children took selfies and rolled their trousers up to their knees and waded into the water to bathe. Men floated from group to group, selling sunglasses and toy AK47s (which children battled with). Fruit sellers chopped and stacked mangos, pineapples, watermelons and bananas. Women rarely approached me, but a very pretty lady grabbed my arm at one point. She was nearly my height, and, with a beautiful smile, she said in deep, flawless English, ‘Money for trans, money for trans’. For the first time in India, dozens wanted a selfie with me — waking me from my slumber with ‘selfie selfie selfie!’. Families had driven from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Punjab and were staying to watch that blazing sun set, and then wake early to see it rise. 

I watched the sunrise from the top of my hotel. (It is the last time I will see the sun rise out of the sea until I reach the Vietnamese coast). But with the rising of the sun came the heat of the day... The ceaseless heat! That cruel sun, which every Englishman dreams of. Yes, we fantasise, but as soon as the sun breaks free from the clouds, we turn red and drip and grumble. For this reason, we go on holiday to Cornwall and instead complain about the rain.

In this Indian summer, I never need to wee no matter how much water I drink. The heat is thirty-five degrees (and climbing), and the humidity is around seventy per cent. It will reach one hundred. Even sitting in my budget hotel, in the shade and under a fan, I bead with sweat. Consequently, cycling is now more complicated and I have a new routine. 

My ‘summer routine’ follows: I go to bed so early it’s embarrassing, and wake up at five thirty to cycle from dawn, just after six. Even then, the air is not cool; there is not a breath of freshness about it. Yet life is relative, and the dawn is bearable relative to midday, so those golden hours excite me.

The first thing I drink is a salty electrolyte sachet. While it’s disgusting, nothing wakes me up faster than wretching. I’ve had an oversized shirt tailored, which I can unbutton and has long sleeves. This is my new cycling wear — and, being cotton, the wind brushes through. My Rapha cycling shorts, which are so tight they should be illegal (and, indeed, were smuggled through Saudi Arabia), are black but turn white with salt by midday. Each night, I shower with them to rinse out electrolytes.

By 10 am, I am simmering; by noon, boiling. One lunch time I evaporated entirely.

I finish cycling as early as possible and often have long afternoons to spare. But these afternoons are hardly useful for anything such is my depleted state. I drink more electrolytes and try and bring myself to read but I’m without focus. With indolence, I don’t write in my journal or open my iPad. I am lethargic in a way that I don’t recognise. I am never lethargic! I refuse to be! …yet, on these hot summer days, I don’t feel up for much. If I had access to daytime television, I’d watch it—Homes Under The Hammer or something.

But then it hits me. It’s hot: So what? Heat is part of life. Without it, would a cold water bottle for 20 rupees taste so good? It’s so full of vitality—so quenching! The heat has taught me about myself: I will never again wonder if my shin can sweat, or my elbows. Nor will I worry how it looks to wear a bucket hat under a helmet (it’s cool… but not fashionable). Now I know how many litres of water a man can drink in one day.

I will again be cold, too, I reason. The monsoon will arrive in June. Then I’ll be complaining. Later on, grinding up the Himalayas, I will pray to Ram to clear the snowdrifts or thaw my fingers. And although I have changed my behaviour a little, it’s not impossible to peddle on. I feel sore for the men in the construction sites I pass, carrying half a dozen breeze blocks on their heads or digging up roads, exposed and without the luxury of coconuts overlooking the sea.

Moreover, as I sat among the crowds under Swami Vivekananda, I reflected on his quote: 

"Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable."

Surrounded by families thrilled to be in such a significant place, I realise there are better places to put my attention than on the sticky heat. It’s always better to look outside and appreciate than to remain inside and complain.