Air-conditioning Down the Family Tree

While summer roasts us all over in its last few weeks, Jamshed V Rajan thinks back to how the generations before him beat the heat.

Most Sundays were spent with the family of five bundled in one cot…with a thin, wet bed sheet on top of the mosquito net railings. This ensured a cool breeze from the fan. The only problem: Being the eldest, it was my job to wet the bed sheet every half hour in a bucket of water kept beside the cot…and then spread it on the railings again. In effect, I was my family’s air conditioner from 1985 to 1990.