Winter in Champaign

"Dont teach me ok. I have seen more summers and monsoons than you".. As a child i used to hear this a lot from my elders and friends.often i used to wonder then why people only refer summer and monsoon and not winter.As I grew older I realised in due course that these are the only 2 most difficult and comparatively demanding seasons in India while winter is quite pleasant.In life,always difficult things count while nice things are taken for granted.Hence the phrase dont include the winter.
Eight thousand kilometers and 24 hour air journey away here in champaign,a town near chicago the nature takes completely u turn.Here people talk about winter more than summer.Here monsoon do not exist(You must be knowing this by now).Winter in champaign generally starts at mid november and lasts till mid april. november and december are comparatively ok with temparatures are still in 40s i.e. around 5 degree ( 5 months old in the city, my mind still converts dollars into rupees,farenheits into celcius,miles into kilometers and pounds into kgs :)) which are manageable.But in jan and feb the temparature drops drastically as low as 0 F (-17 C) with chill wind making it feel further cold.Average temp hobbers around 32 F (0 C) through 2 months and it is imperative that life is not possible without heaters here...with such bad temparatures, all outdoor activities seizes . I really pity about the kids here who have to satisfy with indoor games only in winter.But life still goes on. people continue go to offices,restaurants and to relatives.You need to have atleast 2 to 3 layers of clothes to combat this winter and need to drink lot of orange juices to keep yourself warm.
The winter here is so bad that you can not rely on sun too. The sun may be out on a winter day to fool you.It do not have any influence on temp though.Recently the temp in Mumbai drop to 6 or 7 i.e. record low in last 60 years and i remember some1 jokingly said that all hot girls in Mumbai are not in town hence the city is cold. I wonder wat people will say here in champaign where temp remain in minuses for bulk part of the year. :)
to add more trouble in this winter, there is snow and ice storm.Like first rain in mumbai, first snow in champaign is also pleasant.Its all white everywhere and people do get there digital cameras out to capture first snowy moment.Its all so nice.A child in you always pops up during those moments enjoying another wonder of nature.(i still dont know the geographical reason behind snow fall ,neither i want to know).But it does not stop here.It snows again and again around 5,6 times in winter and you no more like the snow.A typical snowy winter day results in clearing snow in front of your house and car(this program takes 30 to 40 minutes and results in backache for elderly guys) driving the vehicles in 20s ( i mean 20 miles compared to 40 50)and the situation becomes quite messy.You need to very careful while walking.with 2 layers of clothes, a monkey cap and handgoves ,it doesnt make a good walk.
The weekends become very boring as you can not go out much and activity restricts to max bowling and ice skating once in a while and all eagerly wait for spring i.e. spring of hope.
really the winter here is not the winter of dispair as some1 said but the winter of discontent. I am privileged to complete 1 winter here though and I can proudly say that I have seen not only 24 summers and 24 monsoons but a winter too. isnt i a smart guy then??? let me kow.

My Friend, my companion,I know you will be there ,throughout the years!

Friends!!Friendship!! These are the most common words that you come across in day to day life.so often we tend to undermine the very importance of these words by overusing it.People say friends are like angels because you dont inherit them and they become part of your life because you want so. Being an introvert and kind of stubborn guy,i never had a big friend circle .Infact i am not in touch with any of my school friends :(.It took me 4 years of engineering and 24 years of my life to make 2 good friends namely girish and nagarajan.I dont recall a incident how we met. but one thing for sure that they made it a first pass.(That they will also agree :).It is always been the case with me in any relationship)and I oblige.It took us 1 semester to get going and then it was quite joyous 4 years.Both were all part of my life knowing all my secrets and crushes if any.The common interest between me and nagarajan was cricket while in case of girish it was movies.Fortunately or unfortunately our crushes and love interests never coincided or we had good undestanding about it you can say!! so nice friends naa.our phone conversations used to last for hours discussions ranging from cricket,movies, politics and day to day college activities and gossips.In between we used to discuss studies to make our living in the future.nagarajan south indian sincere student ,me middle class maharashtrian mulga while girish was urban higher middle class maharashtrian guy. Still we get along well. I am not sure about how close was girish with nagarajan but i was the link between two and both were my best buddies and pals.During those 4 years we had fun to say least.And I must thank both of those to make my college life better.we never discussed about our futures at length during those times.We were so busy in present only then.We never promised to stay in touch or something like that. We never thought about it.But see the irony we so called best buddies hardly met after college is over. Infact i met nagarajan while coming to us of A and it was fun but its ages since i last seen or met girish.Nice part is all are doing good. Meet or no meet we will always remain great pals.such is the warmth of our relationship that even after 4 years of isolation, it is making my day in champaign otherwise a bore day in this despair winter.To be continued...........