Think it will rain? Oh, my mistake...

Yesterday, as I was leaving the Charitable Hospital, I looked up and saw several clouds in the sky. "Hmmmm," I thought to myself, "I haven't seen those in a few months."

So I turned and said, "Kya baraish ho ja-yega?", which means, "Do you think it will rain?" or more literally, "Is rain going to happen?"

They all looked at me with blank stares.

Oh yeah, I thought, my mistake.

There was nothing wrong with my Urdu grammar. There was nothing wrong with my vocabulary. There was nothing wrong with my pronunciation.

It was a problem with my world view.

Local people do not speculate about the future. They just don't do that. Why would you ask if it is going to rain? It obviously is not raining right now. Why would one try and guess if it is going to rain at some unspecified point in the future?