Thursday 2 February 2012

ON THE ROCKS ...........BUT WITH A DIFFERENCE !



1986 winter in Doha .  Early months after Geetha and children joined me .We were put up in an apartment building then in old airport area (very close to present Lulu Hypermarket ). A cocktail party was arranged by neighbour family of Ravi and Latha in their apartment on a weekend. Four or five 'Mallu' families -  colleagues of Ravi working in Gulf Times - were the invitees other than us .

A pleasant evening . Men and women started getting relaxed .Children were playing ' hide and seek' . Ravi brought the bottles after getting the preference of the brands from men ('Mallu' ladies will hardly drink). All of a sudden we heard a thundering sound - as if stones are pelted on the building and surroundings ...rain lashed . For a second we did not have any clue .But then children started shouting " ice ..ice". It was a hail storm!


                                                                   courtesy :google images

Ravi's apartment was in the GF with a small back yard. All rushed to the door leading to this back yard.We could see hails coming down along with rain splashed in the yard.Hails were of the size of golf balls ! It might have remained so for a minute but  then stopped . Children and one or two adults started picking the  hails . Latha made a large plate available for that and brought to the drawing room . Children were licking the hails they picked up . It was then somebody put the hail into a glass and poured the liquor. Almost all men followed suit .Cheers !!!!

"On the rocks " is a phrase describing a drink served over ice cubes .Obviously the ice cubes comes from the refrigerator . But when ice used is hail , fresh fallen on earth , I dont know whether the same phrase can be used or not !!

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"TENNO HEIKA BANZAI"!

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