At my office in Dubai–a slender slice of the emirate's multinational workforce–a simple “What a lovely day!” can be confusing.
The Indians among us would take the remark to mean that it’s raining or at least overcast. British colleagues, who have chased the sun that set on their empire all the way to Dubai, would expect to see sparkling sunshine.
On the few rainy days here in late winter, my Indian colleague and I feel an added spring in our steps, a sense of possibilities. We walk into the office, remembering weekend getaways to Lonavala during Mumbai’s monsoons, and say: “Picnic weather!” to grumbles from the I-didn’t-move-from-dismal-old-London-for-this crowd.
Celebrating another Mumbai tradition, we once at that time of year called for hot onion bhajiyas from the food court at the nearby Dubai Internet City, where many information technology professionals from India work. “Too late,” we were told — bhajiyas, pakodas, wadas and the like were long sold out to other exiles who felt the same damp magic in the air.
What reminds me of this now, given that in Dubai the temperature is nearly 40C and feels like 45C? Because since the beginning of June many nostalgic Indians have informed me wistfully: “It’s started raining back home.”
Jamaal, a young expatriate from Kerala working as a janitor, told me he likes to imagine how by now the first rains would have filled the paddy fields around his home and everything would be green and lush. “I look at the dry, hot sand here and wonder why I’m not back at home enjoying the early rains,” he says.
My own memories include rain pelting down on the shuttered shacks on off-season Goan beaches; early monsoon showers, called thulavarsham in Malayalam, over the mountains and fields of Kerala; a misty drizzle on rhododendron bushes on the lower slopes o [...]
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