Blissfully Cloudy...

   As a resident of Oman, I have learned from a very young age that one cannot take rain for granted. Ever since my childhood rainy days, heck even slightly cloudy days, have elicited such unique feelings of laziness that I remember them till today. When one grows up in a desert, there are certain things one expects. Sweltering, humid summers and pleasantly chilly winters. Mini-sandstorms and random goats on hill-tops. However, one doesn’t expect snow, rain, hail or any form of precipitation other than morning dew. In fact, rain was so rare in this country, that during my school days, whenever there was the tiniest hint of cloudy skies or even the slightest drizzle, students all across my school would magically awaken from their slumber in mathematics or history classes and then make the same statement over and over again. All through school the line “Can we have a free lesson and go out Ma’am?!” would resonate. Whether one was learning addition in first grade or cursing integration in twelfth, rainy days really united the school.


   Rainy days worked their magic on not only us, mere students, but on the teachers as well (at least some of them.) That one teacher who usually gawked at her class when asked for a free-lesson (“How will we ever finish the syllabus my dear children?!”), was inspired to only teach for forty of the forty-five minutes of her class. The math teacher suddenly started giving the class extremely easy questions to work on. The English teacher encouraged in-class activities such as group discussions. In my personal experience, we discussed Shah-Rukh far more than Shakespeare in these precious spans of time. Yes, rainy days worked their magic on the most stubborn teachers as well.

  Now that global warming is becoming Earth’s new best friend, Oman sees a lot more rainy + cloudy days than it ever did. In fact, when I was away at university, the most unthinkable of things happened in this modest country. School actually got cancelled because of rain. For those of us who have grown up in this particular city and have gone to this particular school, the chances of such an event occurring are like Miley Cyrus getting nominated for an Oscar. It’s simply unthinkable. But behold, such a wondrous event (and I am not referring to Miley’s Oscar dreams) did occur here.

  One particular incident that I can’t help but recall occurred on the last day of my eighth grade. The skies had been particularly cloudy that day, but everyone expected the clouds to just float away to the neighboring cities like they always did (traitors). It was too much to ask really. It was a Wednesday (which signaled weekend) and our final exams had just gotten over (which signaled limitedly unlimited games with friends). And then for it to rain on such a day? Heaven could really be found on Earth!

  However, lunch time came and went and there was not even a drop of rain to be seen. All of us kids reluctantly met at our badminton court to curse the weather gods when the oddest thing happened. One of the boys started accusing us of pelting him with a pebble. Accusations flew around and tempers grew. The situation got worse when another girl screamed in pain when a pebble neatly bounced off her head. It was then that we realized the impossible. It was hailing! The skies were engaging in their own form of ‘badminton’ with us! The rarity of this event caused us to stand flabbergasted on the same spot till one of our mothers started screaming at us to go home. Now under normal circumstances, we would all have gone home, opened our windows and stared wide-eyed at the little heaven-sent rocks we were getting. But come on, it was hailing. How can one expect a normal day with hail in a desert?

  The minute we stepped into the building, as we were waiting for the elevators (and yes, I took the elevator regularly to the first floor. Don’t judge me.), a scream reverberated through the building. A lady was trapped between floors in the elevator! And to top it off, the power in the entire building had gone off with no signs of coming back anytime soon (at this point there was a total downpour occurring outside). To make a long story short, the elevator doors had to be thrust open by firemen (at least I think they were firemen…), the trembling lady was pulled out of a pitch-black elevator loudly declaring her claustrophobia and everyone returned to their darkened flats. The entire incident must have gone on for about two hours. In my homework-doing, exam-cramming life, that day was truly an extraordinary day and absolutely out of the blue. All of us kids met up later that evening, said a quiet thanks to the weather gods for such an exciting day and retired to our normal lives. I say this because the very next day we had such sunny skies that one would have smirked at our stories.

  All in all, rainy days still make me feel extremely at peace. Despite all the various types of weather I endured at university (snowstorms, hurricanes, you name it), rainy days, heck cloudy days, still make me feel like a little child, looking expectantly at the skies, hoping for another extraordinary day.

 * I'd like to dedicate this post to my 'Secret Passage' friends. My childhood wouldn't have been the same without you all. *