Let It Snow, Let It Snow
By Kamal Sunavala
There's nothing wrong with being a cynic
if you give it a rest just before Christmas and at New
Year's. And so
I did. I was hanging around The Red Lion, the Czech pub
in Dubai, and talking to a couple of people who weren't
heading back to the Czech Republic for the holidays. We
were listless and bored and moaning about the lack of anything
Christmassy here, apart from the shopping which happens
year-round anyway.
Most of all, we missed the snow, the silly
excitement of joining half the country in the Krkonoše
Mountains and
of course, the snow. So while we were a bit mollified that
temperatures had dropped to 14 degrees, we were still not
in a ho ho ho mood. I mean honestly, drinking mulled wine
here without the majesty of any náměstí to wander around
in, just doesn't do it for me. Nor, does it for Ondřej
or Petra who were quietly reminiscing about their holidays
in the Krkonoše.
Then the miracle of Christmas happened. While we all tucked
in our beds at night, dreaming of Santa, the Christmas
market in Prague and the snow falling softly outside our
windows, it did. Not outside our windows, I grant you.
But high up in the mountains (yes, there are mountains
in the UAE!) it snowed softly for the first time in forty
years in this country.
The next morning the papers were full of
the news. We met up at The Red Lion and danced wildly around
the tables
whilst singing a daft mash of Czech and English Christmas
songs. It was absolutely unbelievable and although the
snow was unlikely to fall again and it was less than two
kilometres wide, it was snow! Real snow and real cold and
nothing could dampen our childish excitement. Petra said
she would bake vánočka in its honour and although
I didn't see the connection I insisted on continuing to
jump in
my chair.
The beauty of this was that each and every one of us who
has lived in the Czech Republic and in other parts of Europe
have a particular affinity to the snow, especially when
we are now in a part of the world where all you get is
unbearable heat. We joked that it was our constant whingeing
and whining that finally made it snow.
As we sat around that evening exchanging stories of how
we spent winters in the Czech Republic and longed to get
away to warmer lands, there were still some of us who secretly
longed to be enveloped in a white blanket.
The newspapers showed broad headlines that day about the
miracle of snow and cited the various meteorological and
geological reasons for this to have happened.
There were three people in a Czech pub in Dubai who knew
the real reason. It was our Christmas present come to us,
all the way from the country we loved. Thank you, Mikuláš.
Read Kamal's Tongue-in-Czech stories
from Prague.
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