Divine warnings

People often seem to think there is a link between climate change *cough global warming cough* and pretty much anything modern humans do. I do too. Something is messing about with the planet's weather and I guess it is time to invite Hardy Boys and Scooby Doo to find out exactly what's fooling around with the weather.

I have known this to be true ever since I owned by first bicycle at the tender old age of 6 (of course, I owned a cycle even before that, but I was never responsible for its upkeep, or rather, maintenance in running condition. Admittedly, I admit I might have been responsible for the disintegration of quite a few of my earlier cycles, but again, such an admission would be tantamount to digression from the topic, so I withdraw said admission.)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, climate change was the product of insane disaster mongers who claimed to think weather patterns were changing. The topic wasn't even fashionable! In such an environment, how did I, at the tender age of 6-7, realise something's wrong with the weather? I may not have termed the phenomenon as climate change or even global warming. I suppose in my fertile mind, it was more of global warning (scratch that, divine warning is a closer fit). 

Had someone asked me to define what this divine warning is, I might have said its God's way of saying I should not waste water by unnecessarily washing myself or my bike. Allow me to explain.

I have been jinxed with the rains since that age. It would pour cats and dogs each and every time I wash my vehicle. Without fail. The day I decide to restore the colour of my cycle/car/bike back to the colour its maker had bestowed on it, it would rain. No ordinary wetting of the land, mind you. It would be torrential. I would normally choose a day that is bright and sunny to perform said ritual. No matter how sunny the day begins, the moment I finish washing and drying and decide to take my gleaming ride out to air, clouds would rumble in and it would pour. I learnt then that this is a divine warning. As I grew older, I began to think the rains were merely an acknowledgement of me being active. A divine celebration of sorts. So I thought maybe this is a message from God that I should be lazy and outsourced my washing activities. That didn't help either. The vehicle would be wet and dirty by the time I got back from the garage after a good scrub down.

Around 2000, I learnt that the best form of defence is offense, so I began washing my bike even more frequently, in fact, at one stage, it was a continuous process. I would wash, it would rain and I would wash again and it would rain again...you get the drift. The resultant flooding drowned large parts of Meena Estate, which I refuse to be held responsible for.

At wit's end, I decided to flee the country. Maybe going to a country where it rains for 2 or 3 days in a year would break the jinx. So I went to Dubai. My calculation was correct and the jinx with the rains had been broken. My incessant washing did not turn Dubai into a fertile region. However, there was another problem. Just like the suits at CO2 Inc., discovered it isn't so much as global warming but climate change, I discovered my jinx was never with the rain, it was with nature. In Dubai, there would be sand storms. I would wash my car and the next day it would be covered in dust as if someone had emptied the contents of their vacuum cleaner on my car. The dust bowl that is the Arabian Desert would let out an almighty belch and attempt to convert the city of Dubai back into the desert from which it arose. It was horrible. It would lie waiting for me to part with Dh 25 for a car wash. And then pounce.

I realised then that it there is no point fighting nature and gave up all hope of ever having a clean vehicle. Keeping it clean and admiring it for the few hours it remained clean was all I could do.

Having failed with the rains and dust, I decided I might as well go to a place where it rains more often than it shines and moved to the UK. True to its reputation, it would chuck it down each time I washed, but that's alright, I knew it was coming and more or less got used to a dirty vehicle. Nature had decided to test me and I had failed. I had given up.

Just when I soulfully decided to get used to the notion of a perpetual dirty vehicle, I decided that for one last time, I would pay to have my scooter washed. I paid the money and took possession of a gleaming scooter and looked up and lo and behold! No clouds. In fact, it has been 2 weeks now and it hasn't rained. In all my time in the UK, it hasn't been rain free for 2 weeks in a row. Nature is cruel, I tell you, she's just taunting me with that can of wax to shine my scooter before she chucks it down again, but I'm going to be one step ahead of the game. I am never going to wash or wax my scooter again; maybe it will never rain in the UK again...