Snow storm!!

I've seen a snow storm before. When about 11 of us from RECK had set off for Shimla we had no inkling of it but by the time we got there, we were right in the middle of a raging snow storm. The wind howled around us and the flakes fell thick and heavy. Once on the ground they were like powdered velvet to the touch. And that was back in India.

Tomorrow it seems that we are in for a big big snow storm here in Massachusetts. My American pals are planning to head out of office at 11:00 in the morning to avoid this monster and some of them who drive more than an hour to come to office are skipping office altogether! Tomorrow being a Friday is a big bonus. If I were a resident American, I'd also use this grand excuse to curl up inside my home with the heat turned on and a cup of hot chocolate in my hands. Who'd be loony enough to want to make it to office on such a day except us weird foreigners!

And today afternoon, I was party to three seperate conversations in which the central topic of conversation was the storm. There was a buzz in the air just like the day before the Presidential election. Americans I've found are obsessed with weather and most of them carry at least a week's weather forecast in their heads. This snow storm it seems is serious enough to ensure that the Governor of Massachusetts asked his staff to stay put at home tomorrow. Folks in my office discussed it with such gravity that they might as well be discussing someone's impending funeral. "Mountains of snow" is a term that I heard a million times today to my great delight!

Me, I am thrilled to bits. There is a extreme level of expectation from this storm which I've never had for bad weather before. In India, our weathermen are such lousy predictors that they are never able to forewarn us about anything! Thunderstorms come onto us with their overpowering chorus and car wash service like a pleasant or unpleasant surprise depending on whether you are returning from office or heading there. Here the beast of weather is a familiar one. Everyone knows that it is coming and prepares accordingly. It kills the unpredictability that we Indians so prize and also stokes up an unrealistic hope that everything will be buried in snow and people will be stuck in their houses for days. I know Massachusetts is hardly Alaska so I must make do with whatever measly snow we get! But the hype around this storm has got to my mind too much. I am getting out my gloves and woolen cap. It had better live up to all the bad things that are being said about it!