The Taste of Summer Vacation

Every Indian summer feels like a wild mix of sweating buckets, endless fights with your cousins and living your best life—all at once. I know we all complain about the heat (like, why is the sun personally attacking us?), but deep down, summer is that one season that gives us the best kind of chaos. And every year, without fail, it turns into a movie I didn’t even know I was starring in.

For me, the main character moment always starts in the kitchen. It's morning, and I’m still half asleep, but the smell of aamras and freshly fried pooris hits me like a truck. No alarm ever did the job as well as the scent of mango. I’d drag myself out of bed, not because I was excited about the day, but because I was emotionally invested in how many pooris I could eat before anyone else woke up. Spoiler: my cousin always beat me. But I was too busy licking mango pulp off my fingers and wiping it on a tissue like I wasn’t making a complete mess.

And let’s be honest—Indian summers are defined by their snack game. Like, it’s not summer unless someone offers you a raw mango (kairi) with salt and chilli powder. It’s sour, spicy, and instantly makes you feel alive. Then there’s buttermilk or chaas, ice-cold in those metal glasses your grandma probably still uses. You’ll hate it when you’re little, then suddenly be obsessed with it by the time you're sixteen. 

But the real MVPs of summer? Small Pepsis and golas. If you know, you know. Those tiny frozen cola tubes for five bucks? ICONIC. We'd run to the nearest shop with coins jangling in our pockets, bite off the corner of the plastic, and drink it like it was the fanciest thing on Earth. And golas? Literal art. The way the ice would soak up those bright syrups—kala khatta, rose, orange—and drip down our hands while we pretended not to care? That was peak aesthetic. Purple lips, sticky fingers, zero regrets.

Afternoons were usually survival mode—blinds closed, fan on full speed, probably watching reruns of something on TV with cousins, or scrolling endlessly while sipping nimbu paani with extra ice. But evenings? That’s when the city came back to life. Everyone outside, playing cricket or badminton in narrow lanes, aunty squads on balconies chatting louder than needed, and the smell of bhel puri or pani puri filling the air. That mix of spice, crunch, and tangy chutney? Just chef’s kiss.

Every Indian summer feels like a wild mix of sweating buckets, endless power cuts, and somehow, even with complaining about the heat and the never-ending sweat, summers gave us memories we still talk about every year. 

So yeah, Indian summers are loud, messy, and maybe a little dramatic. But they also give us mango-stained memories, frozen treats, and the kind of moments we don’t realize we’re gonna miss until we’re back in school Googling “how to survive math class.”

Here’s to sweaty days, syrupy smiles, and summers that feel like home—even when you’re melting.

Written by Sreesha Chainani

Sreesha wrote this article as co-Editor of the program zine, The MMF Summer Rewind.

This zine was established to showcase the work of students and interns at the Media-Makers Fellowship's May '25 cohort.