Rain fell on Mondays. Rain fell on Tuesdays. Rain pelted the town all week, except Friday evening from 3 to 4 p.m. At that hour, rain ceased—hailstones pounded the earth. Pebbles no larger than kidney stones crashed down alongside boulders the size of third-grade children’s heads.
The phenomenon thrust the town into the spotlight. BBC reporters arrived to document it. This was the only time the town was covered in international news. Smartphones didn’t exist then, so no one captured the event. News crews reached the town late, and by the time cameras rolled, the ice had melted into puddles. But every resident had witnessed the bombardment. Evidence scarred the landscape. Windows shattered, barns collapsed, the school bus bore dents.
Townspeople dreaded another assault, but decades passed in silence—until last week. The cycle returned: constant downpours, then precisely from 3 to 4 p.m., hailstones. This time, ice chunks larger than footballs demolished roofs and maimed residents.
An old man who had survived the first storm as a boy met the reporters:
“I am telling you this is exactly what happened twenty-eight years ago,” he pleaded. “I was standing in the school corridor, and I know vividly how the stones fell…”
“But how big were the stones?”
“Tiny stones, not so big…” His eyes glazed.
No one really believed him. But some whispered, “When it happens next time, we would be dead…twenty-eight years is a long time.”
But Ooty’s weather was unpredictable.
After twenty-eight days, by 3 o’clock, a comet crashed on the town. Luckily, the old man who gave the interview was on a health check-up in Coimbatore.
“This is a miracle… or plain coincidence… Many people died in this horrific disaster,” the reporter said to the man.
“No coincidence. I meant to say twenty-eight days, and that is precisely why I went for a check-up.”
“Then why didn’t you warn the others?” barked the reporter.
“Well, I must have warned them, but I don’t remember. I told my son though.”
Just then a man with a long face, brownish hair came forward.
“He’s got amnesia and is not mentally stable. I am sorry for all the mix-up. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
The reporter’s face turned red. “Who are you?”
“I am his son,” he said, pulling him away from the reporters.
When they were away, the son confronted his father.
“Dad, you shouldn’t be saying such things.”
“But it is the truth. In twenty-eight days, another destruction will happen.”
After twenty-eight hours, the reporters were flocking to the man’s house once again.
“In just twenty-eight hours, a snowstorm arrived and killed most of the people.”
“Oh, I meant to say twenty-eight hours…” the old man sighed. “That damned weather never makes up its mind, does it?”