Here comes the sun...it's all right.

(The Beatles, Abbey Road1969)

On Monday, the 17th of May 2010, Delhi recorded its highest maximum temperature for the month of May in 8 years, at 45.4 degrees celcius. The minimum stood at 28.2 degrees.

The kicker, however, came on the next day. On Tuesday, Delhi recorded it's highest minimum temperature for the month of May in 5 years - 32 degrees celcius. The maximum on that day was 44.5 degrees celcius

Anyone living in Delhi can tell you that Tuesday was a lot worse than Monday. The abnormally high minimum temperature meant that the heat never let up, even in the evening, so it 'felt' like you were in an oven all day long.

And that's the nub of this summer theory; this seems to be the nature of the human machine - we can function successfully at extremes on either end of our operating range, but only if we are allowed to rest in conditions that are substantially different from the extreme we are subject to.

Another observation in support of this theory: Delhi is a city of extremes on the weather palette and winters are no exception.

The same max-min principle applies in winter too; the real cold bite is felt on days when the maximum temperature hovers not very far above the minimum. Those are the 'no-sun' days when residents feel cold pretty much all the time. To spell out the learning from the winter: we can live with extremely cold days too, as long as we're given a few hours that are substantially warmer that the coldest temperature of the day.

A final fact in support of my larger theory and I'll let you go.

A year and a half ago, my mother was diagnosed with very high blood pressure (asymptomatic, several cardiac blocks discovered later). Investigations revealed that her blood pressure was 230/120.

For the lucky few in great health and surrounded by only healthy people, hence ignorant of these terms, a quick digression into what the numbers mean...

230 is number of millimeters of mercury that would be displaced by my mother's heart (if it pumped mercury instead of blood with every beat :-) , called the systolic blood pressure). And 120 is the mm of mercury her heart would displace when at rest (called diastolic blood pressure). For a normal, healthy human being, the numbers should be 120/80.

So, in my mother's case, while her systolic (upper end blood pressure) was just over double the acceptable mark, her diastolic (resting heart blood pressure) was only 50% over the acceptable limit.

The doctors however, were worried more about the resting pressure than about the systolic BP.

They told me this was because an elevated resting rate meant that the heart was never "really at rest". If they could bring down this rate, and give her heart some 'quality rest', they were pretty sure the systolic pressure would come down as well.

With that, I sum up my layman theory - the human body is capable of handling extremes, but only if it gets real reprieves from such oppressive conditions soon.

p.s: As I bid thee farewell, let me release a sly cat among the pigeons -- this is all very similar to what happens to the mind during periods of meditation -- even a few seconds of 'real emptiness' can refresh you after hours of activity and chatter :-)