Summer is back, yet again — with a vengeance. Just what the meteorologist had warned that a very hot month is ahead of us. As the day temperature was menacingly rising every day, I called up my air-conditioning guy and told him in a stern voice to come and do the job before we started roasting.

A shrewd tradesman, Irfan said: “Sir, I am very busy as, you know, the season has started and I am inundated with service bookings. However, I cannot ignore an old and valued customer like you”. That was his way of talking because I felt I may be the only customer he may be attending to that particular day. Well, he came rushing and serviced my air-conditioners pointing out once again that he had jumped the queue for me. In any case, the fellow had ensured a comfortable period to my family — a big relief from the oppressive heat that had come suddenly a bit early.

As I sipped tea in the first cool comfort of the season, I got a sort of flashback of the old world charm. How things have changed drastically over the years! In particular, it has been a big transition from the days of Khus (Vetiver grass) to today’s air conditioners.

Come April and makers of portable khus doors and windows would spread out in the city preparing them right at our doors. I noticed that only a particular section of nomads did the job. As a young lad growing up in the late 1940s and 1950s, I would keenly watch them ensconcing the khus grass with bamboo shoots and reed grass.

The khus screen-maker would himself wet them with water to give us the sample of that sweet and enchanting smell of the unique grass. All of us would take a deep breath of the charming aroma and let out a full scale “aah”.

Even though it used to be an annual exercise, the khus-seller would make it appear as our first-time experience. Every year, we also felt the same way.

For the younger generation, talking of vetiver screens in the age of air-conditioners might be a misplaced comparison. I am sure most youngsters may not have even seen this grass, let alone enjoyed the undiluted aroma. But the good old cooling system did have its own magical appeal notwithstanding the manual labour it required to keep wetting the screens.

The job was left for children while the elders including the tired womenfolk stole a wink or enjoyed a full-scale fiesta. As a member of the team of youngsters, I wholeheartedly enjoyed my duty of splashing water on them. The wet screens’ aroma never diminished or died and always magically freshened up the atmosphere instantaneously.

Today, we put a room freshener or essential oils of our choice. But the aroma is short-lived and has to be replenished frequently.

Till the advent of air-coolers, the khus screens held their sway. They adorned every door and window of private and public offices. Like other government office buildings, the Uttar Pradesh Civil Secretariat, the seat of the state government in Lucknow, also had rows of khus doors and curtains, which protected the legislators from the oppressive heat outside. Ministers, officials and private individuals who could not bear the heat of May and June in Lucknow, a sojourn to Nainital, the most popular hill resort, then a part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, provided succour. The hill station, now in the state of Uttarakhand, served as the government’s summer capital.

Another cooling agent used to be the ice slab. There being no refrigerators in those days, the void was filled by ice slabs weighing almost 20 kilos, which were procured early in the morning to last the whole day. Ours being a large family of 12 members, sometimes, even one big slab wasn’t enough. To insulate it from the sizzling heat, the slab was covered with sawdust.

Pieces of ice were used to prepare cold water, sherbet — most important of all, to soothe skin inflictions like prickly heat. What ice did then is today sought to be done by fancy talcum powders. But the touch of the cold ice on the afflicted skin was an experience in itself. Exposure of skin to ice pieces might sound out-dated today, but that was a way of life in those days.

As my tea finished, I realised how I had transited from one era to another over these years. Journeying from the days of the khus screens to the ice slabs to air-coolers and then air-conditioners, I was left wondering if the new generation would ever get to witness something so drastically different?

Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.