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Photo: M. Karunakaran

Out of nasty burn-out Summer camps are a great way to engage children

The sun glowers, the sky growls and the heat suffocates. The touch of even a light fabric feels like flint rubbing. The days seem forged in a thermonuclear blast furnace, as humidity saps the life out. While, throat becomes like cauterized earth, cool nights are longingly awaited. The summer is in full swing.

This is the time when outdoors become a refreshing experience for the young and the old alike. “Every bug crawls out into open air in summer, so why not we?” asks Ramsaran T., a student of zoology. “The cool breeze in summer has a saving quality about it,” he adds with a bug-eyed perspective. Now that exams are over, “I am going to a summer camp. In good olden days, you lazed on the grass under the shade of a tree and felt cool. Now they call it summer camp. Just kidding, mate.”

Summer camps are a great way to engage children and get them ready for the grueling academic year ahead. “First, these camps keep the children out of a nasty burn-out. Then they whet their appetite for exploring the world, and help them learn a new skill or a new trade,” says Venugopal, a summer camp organiser. “And, it’s plain fun too,” he adds quickly.

A summer camp in a good outdoor location can salve the skin, replenish the head and rejuvenate the soul. “Summer camps are always fun. I remember having gone for rock climbing, boating or simply lazing around on the sand stretches,” reminisces Harish, a customer service centre guy with a breezy outlook on life.

Certain stretches of outdoors have a character of their own. They are lined with giant trees spreading their foliage, their leaves, and their blessings; rivers dotted with brown sands in the midst of water, and wild bush spawning here and there, with cattle grazing.

“Outdoors have a beauty lent by the breeze, the tree lines, the birds,” says Ganesh, an outdoor man. “I am sending my children to an outdoor camp where they can connect to the nature in the best possible ways.”

Most households are divided into two camps in summer — Those who think sleeping on the terrace is like heaven and those who cannot drag their sweat-sodden bodies out of rooms filled with recycled air.

Summer is the time, for once, when we don’t make hay when the sun shines and instead, move far out and beyond to discover the trees, the stars and the earth.

With the heat-trapping greenhouse gases shooting up the temperature, global warming is no more a distant threat that can be watched on major news networks or read in newspapers and magazines and wished away with a flick on the remote or a flip of the page. It can be felt acutely in our homes, up-close on our skins. Heat, unlike beauty, is not just skin deep, but can roast innards.

Sixty five-year-old Murthy rollicks through every season except, of course, summer. He fears the heat may undo the glue that ties his body and soul together. Both in the morning and late evening, he goes out to just breathe in the atmosphere. “I cannot do without it.” Feeling the caress of the cool breeze blowing he says: “You have no idea how old people feel in this heat.” Not only is it unbearable and disorienting, it is life threatening. So, we got to be very grateful for the blessings of wind and water.

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