Day After Tomorrow ... Yesterday

Well I had to type yesterday that I liked rain. And boy - did it rain!

When I drove out from the underground parking yard beneath our office, it was 3.45 pm but felt like 10 pm at night. It was pitch dark. A huge, and I mean huge, ominous, black cloud had swirled above downtown. It was swirling. It was low. Very low.

As I drove down towards the Lakeshore on Spadina, it felt like a scene out of the movie Day After Tomorrow, when twisters hit LA. There were huge traffic jams, I was watching the clouds move to and fro over Lake Ontario, it was windy, raining intermittently. The radio dial was set to 680, where they were announcing tornado warnings with drumbeats and a dramatic background music score.

"This is Harold Hossain at 680. A tornado warning has now been issued for the area of Ajax, Pickering, Scarborough, Richmond Hill, Markham. If you are in that area you are urged to seek shelter IMMEDIATELY. If you are at your home please make your way to the basement NOW. We repeat, a TORNADO warning ..."

And all the while I was like - what - tornado - here! This is Toronto. The most frightening thing we had was a huge dump of snow (30 cm!) that made the mayor call in the army. The scariest thing to visit this city this summer was Stephen Harper. And now we are having a tornado. Or a couple of them.

I was glad to get away from the lake and onto Kingston Road. And another surprise. The signal lights were out. ALL OF THEM. ALL THE WAY HOME. And instead of treating them like all-way-stops, some clowns were treating the jam packed road as the 401.

Home Sweet Home at last.

The last time I had such a crazy drive home was the black out, two years ago, almost to the day (August 13, 2003).

Maybe I should change my Bengali song to:

"Allah megh de pani de, chaimuna to aar ..."