Technology has not yet come to the rescue of rural north India. Erratic or non-existent supply of electricity, plus of course economic constraints, rule out air conditioning for most villagers.
Traditional methods of coping with the heat are still in vogue.Sleeping outside is one. Another is social life which takes place under the shade of village trees rather than in air-conditioned bars, restaurants, or drawing rooms.
In the villages, summer provides a break between the harvesting of the winter wheat and the sewing and transplanting of rice. That has to wait for the monsoon, and much of the conversation in villages will be about the prospects for it.
But if the Indian economy goes on growing at the pace it is, maybe in 20 years many of those farmers will have no worries about the hot weather because they too will sleep in air-conditioned bedrooms.
And perhaps technology will have made them less dependent on the monsoon.
(Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by seasonal changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation)
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