41 DEGREE AND STILL RISING

An increasingly terrible heat wave grips Bengal these days. While the higher temerature hovers above 40 - it soars to anything between 46 and 50 in the districts - the lower temperature is always 2/3 celsius above normal. So you're never really free of heat even in late hours of night when the earth is supposed to be cool.

Last night I experienced two kinds of air, one scalding hot and another comfortably cool coming through the window. When the hot air hit me, I fretted in torment. But the cool air soothed my body soonafter, though just for an instant. Caught in such a weather, I slept badly.

The monsoon comes in Bengal on June 8 every year. According to weather pundits, it will be hitting late this time - by as many as ten days. If they were true(in most predictions, they prove themselves wrong), the heat wave is going to take its toll. Only yesterday, it claimed about ten lives, according to a TV channel.

Never before in my life, I've been so much bothered about the heat wave.
MRINAL BOSE