The north-Indian summer is not for the faint-hearted, when not humid, the stark naked Delhi sun ensures you loathe it. But today isn't peak summer. My phone informs me there is forecast for rain, or maybe just empty thunder. I sense moisture-laden clouds, relentless to pressure somehow. I take a shower, in vain though, as sweat beads have begun to appear even before I step out of the bathroom. Strutting around in a towel I sift through my cotton clothes and pick out a yellow maxi dress. Peering into the mirror, I notice the different ways in which the hair on my big head is growing; I need a haircut.

I walk up to the salon in the colony and ask her for a trim along with some layers (because, what else). With the snipping of the scissors, the "parlour aunty" begins her modus operandi: shaming me into guilt-tripping on expensive treatments and services I do not normally care about. Trying to ignore her quip on the tanning of my skin, I ask her to get rid of the tiny hair that have started jutting above my lip, as a truce.

The haircut was smooth, after blow-drying my hair, or rather attempting to pull them off my scalp, she gears up with some talcum powder and a menacing-looking thread reel. She attacks the skin above my lip with measured strokes and the sting brings tears to my eyes. "You have been doing this for over a decade, Ensha", I tell myself, "fight those tears." When she is satisfied with the cleanliness, she applies aloe vera to reduce the redness, lest I look like an angered simian. Emptier by a few hundred rupees, I am forced to admire my reflection and the tresses.

Now back home, I stuff my back pack with overnight clothes and toiletries. Travelling for at least two hours in the metro to reach my aunt's house for a festival is the next course of action. The festivities will bring the extended family together a day after the actual day of the festival. It was also an opportune time for a lone woman in the city to visit her family on the weekend, letting them know she is alive, safe and not getting up to mischief, of course delivered in acceptable vocabulary. 

I take the women's coach from the underground station I live close to. The air in the coach is stale, unmoving. Standing at just over 5 feet makes it worse; access to armpits and unshampooed hair overwhelms the tiny gleam of freshness the air vent was so violently trying to provide. With earbuds and light lyrical music to my rescue, I maintain my emotional equilibrium through the rest of the journey. I feel sick by the time my station arrives, but breathing.

Family matters