But it snowed...

It’s been snowing profusely since last night. It has in fact been snowing since last year. I had lived in Amsterdam and had the great pleasure of encountering snowfall and ice accumulation through the winter. I remember the morning in December that year, when I got up to a rather ‘white’ welcome by the world outside of our house. It was a spectacular scene to behold. The world I had kissed goodnight to before going to sleep had all the colors: green, red, blue and so on. And boy, when I woke up, wasn’t it all colored white by an expert painter? The green fields, the roads, the balcony looked all the same. The beautiful canal (something that makes the Netherlands as wonderful as it is) in front of the house had completely frozen, and I could see ducks ‘walking’ on the hard surface. Welcome break for ducks and swans who must have gotten tired of only swimming! The small plants we had on the balcony had all disappeared under snow. Cars parked under the open sky had disguised. I had never seen something quite like that. The next few days would be full of fun.

I lived right across the road from the office, and hence I didn’t have to worry about braving the cold and the snow to travel to office. I would simply walk to work. The office had all of a sudden taken up a different look. It was glowing white. Once in a while I would peep outside of the office window and enjoy the sight of the snowfall. My friends in office were kids all over again. We would step out to the open area and play with snow, throwing snowballs at each other. All inside the office premises! We would click photographs and post on Orkut. Facebook wasn’t that popular in India back in the day.

Few years on, I find myself again caught up in the middle of snow. More snow than I’d ever seen before. The lowest temperature recorded in Amsterdam that year is considered ‘normal’ here; even by me! As it is, I don’t share a great rapport with cold. It usually gets the better of me. But Cincinnati has been a whole new experience for me.

When I boarded the flight from Chicago as the third leg of my journey from Bangalore, I was reminded of Europe again, especially of the inter-country low-cost flying experiences. The aircraft was small and mine was the first seat. It was so close to the cockpit, I could tell you I flew the plane! There was only one flight attendant who had an aspiring tummy popping out of his white shirt. This guy had a great sense of humor and he repeatedly made us laugh with his on-the-air ‘flying’ jokes. He kept my laptop bag in his own custody, because I didn’t have anywhere else to dump it.

Little did I know when I landed at the Cincinnati airport that it was actually not in the state of Ohio, but in Kentucky, the place where KFC was born. I got a taxi to take me to my hotel (Extended Stay America) in Covington. Call it my ignorance, I believed for two days that I was staying in Ohio, until my friend told me it was Kentucky. I realized that when I saw the Ohio River that bifurcates the two states. I was staying in Kentucky and coming to Ohio for work.

Soon I moved to Blue Ash. I started getting used to living in cold conditions. When some parts of the United States witnessed the coldest winter in twenty years, Cincinnati was hit too. Temperatures dipped to as low as minus twenty five degrees Celsius! The killer wind coupled with that made it feel lot worse. That was early January. The weather has improved since then. 

I was born and raised in a hot and humid place. Except for the winters when it could get reasonably cold, Agartala feels like a pressure cooker. Bangalore has made me a less heat-resilient person, and I faced the brunt of it when I spent few days in Agartala last year, in June. The problem with scorching summers is that you can wear the least number of clothes, but you can’t strip in the open. Winter in a way is better; you can wear as much as you feel is necessary. What if you look like a bulky astronaut walking on the snow, you could still feel protected!