Last night we were witness to one of our severest hail storms, atleast for me it was my most beautiful I think. Around 11, and I was fast asleep, when Diksha runs into my room with "ma, quick, it's hailing like crazy, get up". I rush out to a noise and sight that sent a chill down my spine...it was intense and almost scary.
Strong winds, hail, thunder, lightening, downpour....in fact the wind was so strong, it seemed like the rain was falling horizontally. A quintessential hailstorm.
Considering we live on the top floor, and out balcony is covered with fibreglass sheets, the noise was deafening, and we could gauge the size of the hail just from the noise. I later learnt the hail was around 2 to 3 inches in size.
We have this spectacular view of the city skyline so you can imagine what a sight it was
Here's a picture. Not from my camera ofcourse. It's courtesy The Hindu, but this is what we saw, amazing streaks of lightening across a pitch black city horizon.
Messages started coming in of window panes and car glasses breaking from the hail....trees getting uprooted, branches falling, and cars breaking down. And did I mention, the city was in a complete blackout. Quite a night that was.
So next morning when our watchman comes up and say 'meeku chaala adrushtam andi', (you are really lucky) I was wondering, until I go down and see my car (Nandi) parked in the street, where I'd left it last night.
There's a branch fallen right in front of it, like inches away....and three more fallen just behind, again inches away. Venkataiah was right, it was sheer luck. (I so love my car, I think I would have cried if I'd seen it hurt.) And I was feeling so glad and grateful, that this is another sending up a prayer of thanks for 'Nandi's escape'.
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