An Indian summer is here again. As temperatures soar and tempers rise; and the scramble for the AC remote begins, a deeply mystifying question raises its head again. Why are we humans not satisfied at one universal temperature? Why do some like it at a frosty 20 degrees celsius while others like it at a more balmy 29? Considering that our body temperature is kept within a strictly controlled narrow range, it should be a simple matter to find an ambient temperature that would suit all. Theoretically. But here, as in a million other ways, we are notoriously capricious — we blow hot, blow cold!
Polar opposites
Nowhere is the mismatch so apparent as in married couples. Be they ever so loving, and married ever so long, there is no one mercury level at which they are comfortable. It could be one of the commandments of marriage — “Thou shalt not have the same comfort zone”.
A very few examples will prove my point. My father-in-law would consent to a gentle stately swing of the ceiling fan as a magnanimous gesture for guests. As they mopped their brows, he would sniff ominously at a disturbing ‘chill in the air’ which could home into his lungs at an unguarded moment. Five minutes in an air-conditioned room was guaranteed to cause it to settle there permanently. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, is at a polar extreme. She is at her comfortable best with all the fans swaying and dipping rather dangerously. Loyalty sealed her lips, but she eyed the sleek and silent air-conditioners in the neighbours’ houses with much unchristian envy in her soul.
A winter’s tale
So it was with my own parents. My father’s relationship with the cold can be best be described as… rather wintry. No sooner had the calendar been flipped to reveal the month of November would my dad start his preparations for the ice age. Blankets would be aired, quilts refilled, and the windows shut tight at night. An ancient room heater would undergo a test run, and his woollen suits would be sunned to rid them of their mothball odour. My mother, forever an enthusiast of early morning walks, would step out in a light Kashmiri shawl flung rather carelessly around her shoulders!
I have memories, too, of my grandfather bundled in a thick coat, scarf, and woollen socks in the bitter winters of the north. And my grandmother padding along on the stone-cold floors barefoot as was her wont; her only concession to winter being a thick flannel blouse in place of her usual cotton one.
Piping hot, ice cold
Nor is this strange mismatch limited to the ambient temperature alone. It extends to beverages and food as well. If one partner likes his coffee scalding hot, the other will stir the tea till tepid. Offer a glass of water, and one will want it ice-cold; while the other will decline (‘homeopath’s orders’, you see!). One gulps down food steaming hot, the other waits till the porridge is a congealed mess. A couple we met once even had ice-cream in different states of matter. One had it frozen solid — much like the makers of ice-cream intended us to! The other waited till thaw set in. Mushily melted was the way certain mysterious granules in her throat liked it!
The hot chick and the cool dude
So why do we blow hot, blow cold thus? Having dwelt on these matters with a cool head and cold(er) logic, I have reached an inescapable conclusion. Consider this. We were all born equal. Neonatal incubators are not gender specific. Girls and boys detest caps, scarves, mufflers, and the other fussy layers of winter clothing equally.
The roots of such glaring thermal disparity between the sexes dates to adolescence. At that age, the female of the species turns mysteriously ‘hot’; while the male who could be ‘hot’ (and hot-headed) aspires instead to be a ‘cool’ dude. Its all about the laws of attraction. It certainly makes for a sizzling initial chemistry.
Thermal preferences having thus been established; they tends to persist lifelong. Married life becomes the boiling pot of heated arguments and flaming rows; frosty looks and cold shoulders! Or sometimes a feat of walking on thin ice! One partner is often in hot water or out in the cold.
It all boils down to the clash of the gender thermostats. Whimsical temperature preferences are just a minor part of it.