Rain rain - go away..

Yesterday, there was an announcement - a company wide mass mail. Since there was prediction of heavy rain in Bangalore, the company buses would leave early. 6 o'clock buses started at 4:30, and others, correspondingly early.

In fact throughout the day weather was so cool that nobody was in working mood. Ambling in the corridors and around lawns, having overly long lunch and coffee breaks, people were enjoying. Add to that, this announcement. It was very much like a paid holiday. Of course, I and a few others were working on till late in the night - I left for home at 11:45 pm.

That reminds me of a story one elderly friend of mine shared long back. Once while he was studying in a North Indian state, where there had been scanty rains over some years, there was heavy rain forecast - that people should be prepared. The news has stirred excitement and enthusiastic youth gathered and wanted to make preparations. They have certainly seen reports of floods in TV news, and they knew its effects. They wanted to protect their fellow beings from the flash floods that may attack their city. They went around all houses in their neighborhood and gave instructions - if there is heavy rain pack your belongings and go to terraces, wear light but warm clothes, hold children close to you - if your houses don't have terraces that protect from rain and flood, visit your friends' or relatives' places, especially those with roofed terraces. If still you face menacing water , just look around - we are arranging *boats* just in case! And it seems they actually brought a couple of boats from nearby lakes and kept them in street corners.

Towards the eventide, the sky grew dark and heavy with low-hovering clouds, the breeze turned into wind that raised dust on the roads, the roads quickly got cleared of people, children were huddled inside their homes - some of them peeping out of the windows, curious to see a storm filling their streets with water and the heroes undertaking rescue operations... Then it started.. large rain drops.. quickly wetting the roads, buildings and trees.. then it became louder.. forcefull gusts of wind.. hail-storm.. pebbles of ice pounding on the terraces and asbestos roofs.. fine smoke of dust that appeared with the initial showers is now absent.. ..the lovely rain-smell - especially the one that comes when it showers on parched clay - was soon forgotten ..potholes were getting filled with muddy water.. slender trees in houses and sides of the streets got bended because of wind and hail.. a sight hitherto unknown to most of the children.

Meanwhile the sun set unnoticed and darkness slowly engulfed the whole city (there was a precautionary power-cut).. the ponding sound of hail-storm, the chill of wind, the waving of trees looking like agitated wild beasts in darkness continued.. for a good half-an-hour.. then ending a long spell of hot and humid weather with a pleasant evening.

Yesterday in Bangalore also, the rain played 'phooey-phooey' to all our prepared-ness. Except some drizzles, there was no considerable rain till late in the night. After that, there was no rain at all!