Hey this was not expected so soon…but anyways it was welcomed….after spending 4yrs in piercing heat of Chennai in India a snow fall is surely a welcome change.
I was leaving my department building and was totally prepared to face the cold and chilling wind that freezes my hand when i ride my bike. I knew it’s really cold outside as its winter season starting now. I unlocked the bike and was pulling it out of the department‘s bike parking room (I am going to tell you the series of thoughts that came in my mind in those 2-3 seconds of my just passing the parking room's heavy door.) and it’s when I opened the door I noticed some white wafers falling on me!!!! At the first impression …I was happy (hey, you just can’t be happy with some specks of dust falling over you but I had my own reasons)…I thought that it’s the paint that is falling off the walls due to this freaking cold , the building was loosing it's paint.I really, really wanted to believe it without giving a second thought as it gave me some sort of satisfaction and i had a sigh of relieve.The very thought, however absurd and cuckoo, was making me feel happy and a sense of pride ran across my body as THE FALLING PAINT off the newly build “Kelley Engineering Center” had knocked the Americans off their pedestal. It made me feel that I was back in India!! In those split seconds I even cursed Americans for being incompetent in doing a proper paint and claiming themselves to be a superpower.I believed that they boast a lot for every little thing when they can't even have an affordable heath care or a feasible public transport. Epicenter of this global economic slowdown, you can totally blame them if you lost your job.I was basking in the happiness until i cross those heavy doors.
Unfortunately, all these feelings of disparaging Americans and a sense of having something at which India equals America faded when I finally crossed the door .I discovered that it wasn’t the paint that was falling over me (and of course Americans did a good job of painting, actually they didn't even paint the building. )but was an unexpected snowfall happening outside!!!
People … that was really amazing. I just can’t believe that I could pull out a moment to place India in equal footing as America. Will I ever miss any opportunity to do this again?? I although felt little sad when I had to “reaccept” that America is kind of perfect but at the same time I was rejoiced with the first snow fall of my life. And with the grudging acceptance that India indeed has a long way to go I enjoyed the show fall looking forward to some fact where I may concretely place India over America sometime.
