Rain Rain Go Away

As a little girl going to school in Trichy, we never got weather days off. Because Trichy was famous for its rice paddy, temples, Chola's, schools and HEAT! Yes, it is hot 365 days of the year. Whenever it did rain it would dry up soon so that the HEAT can resume its work. When I moved to Chennai I was in for a surprise. When the rains started pouring I heard for the first time in my life that a cyclone was going to hit my City. I was excited because it was also the first time I ever got to enjoy a weather day off.

It was raining cats and dogs and we tried calling our school several times. With no news if the school was open or not dad took me by autorickshaw to school. But the rick could only go so far as areas around my school was flooded. So we got off and waded through knee deep water. I loved every minute of walking in the City's sewer, don't judge me! I was a kid who was getting closer to know that her school was off for the rest of the day and possibly another couple of days.

We get back home and wait to see if the news would provide us information regarding school closure. So kids who normally did not care what was happening around the world would all tune in to watch the local news in Tamizh and yes schools and all Govt. Offices will  be declared shut due to the cyclone that is swirling 500 kilometers off the coast of Chennai and is expected to arrive anytime between two and eight in the morning. I am sure you could have heard the kids screaming even if you lived on another planet. To most of us it was celebration time because we could stay back home. At that age we really did not care about the homeless or people who lived in the slums, we were getting a day off, so it was time to celebrate.

The next morning when all of the kids would wake up at 10 in the morning only to see bright sun shine. We could not believe our eyes. How could that have happened, from non-stop pouring to bright sun shine and dried up streets? Over night did Varuna change his mind? You bet he did, because the cyclone went and hit Pudukottai or Machilipatinam, Nellore, Orissa, Bangladesh, Kolkatta, or some other poor cities that always got the wrath of the cyclones. I am not kidding you, in the eleven years we lived in Chennai we only got the rains from the cyclones but never the storm itself. All of us kids would sulk now because we were sure that we had to go back to school the next day. What we were hoping would be a week off would get reduced to just having two days off. Sulking, we would get back to school.

This is how the news was always for our city...click here

Looking back now I can see how jealous we kids were but then again we were kids enjoying our childhood so lets it be :)

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