November 8, 2006

• Assorted Randomness – Divine Ice

  For no specific reason what-so-ever…

  If memory serves, it happened during the summer of 89.  One fine afternoon, my father had seen an article in the local paper which had, apparently, drawn his attention to a great extent. 

  The article talked about how, a rather large chunk of ice suddenly fell out of the sky, right in the middle of a middle-of-no-where-type village.  It landed in the muddy grounds next to a pond where the local Muslim population was washing up before their timely prayers.  By chance, or luck, no one was hurt by the falling ice.

  The local elderly wise men declared the ice to be of divine origin.  Aside from the strong, yet pleasant smell, the ice was blue in color; which could only have meant that it came from the heavens above.  And who else but God could and/or would wield the power to will a piece of heaven to come loose and rain down upon his humble yet faithful servants as a sign of divine blessing.  Could there be any other explanation?  After all who else but the all mighty could cause the aforementioned Ice to fall from the sky on a bright cloud-less day, into the middle of a village located somewhere in the tropics?

  It was thus declared that the divine ice was a blessing from god, and would have miraculous effects on the faithful, e.g. cure ailments, and the like.

  The faithful “used” the divine ice any which way they thought it would work.  Some drank it as a miracle potion, others used it as a miracle lotion, others still, may have done things with it that I prefer not to think about.  Unfortunately, the faithful did not have proper refrigeration technology, so the divine ice could not be preserved.  Every last drop/piece was thus “used” by the local populace, until only the memory remained.

  Fast forward a day or two it took for the story to reach the newspapers.  The article had gathered my mother’s attention due to it’s sheer absurdity.  She thought it was fake.  My father, who worked for the Bangladeshi Airline at the time, had a different theory all together…

  He thought it was caused by a leaky fuselage, combined with some good and/or bad luck.  Airplanes, generally travel at high altitudes.  Aside from their take-offs and landings, they’re usually flying really, really high.  The temperature is so cold those altitudes that liquids have a tendency of freezing.  Fairly quickly.

  According to my father’s theory, a plane returning from the Kolkata-Dhaka trip basically sprung a leak, somewhere near the wing.  The good thing was that the leak was not deadly, i.e. somewhere on the fuel tank.  The bad thing was, the plane was leaking toilet fluids.  A combination of bodily wastes and used toilet water treated with chemical cleaning agents & deodorants, and Blue Dye.  The leak would have been practically invisible to the naked eye, which was why no one detected it during the standard pre-flight check ups, and in a twist fate which made it impossible for any …er… large and solid “components”, to slip through the hole.

  Drop by drop the unintentionally filtered fluids leaked out of the tank, and made their way on to the wing of the plane until they froze solid.  Over time, the frozen liquid grew in size yet it stayed firmly attached to the plane, until the plane passed the Bangladeshi border, and reduced altitude in order to approach Dhaka Airport.  The temperature got warmer, and the ice had “grown” bigger.  So under it’s own weight, and an ever decreasing “grip” on the wing, the frozen chunk of blue toiled-fluid broke loose.

  My father had approached his boss about his findings.  Unfortunately, as his boss pointed it out to him, it would be their own necks on the line for not detecting and/or fixing the leak in the first place.

  Thus, was born the legend of the Divine Ice…

  • 2:26 am
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