Ice pellet rain

I'm typing this in a kind of frenzied state for I'm just back getting drenched in a rain of ice pellets.Yes! It rained ice pellets a little while ago in Chennai and I raced to the terrace just to enjoy this new kind of experience. I fortunately had two of my tiny neighbours accompanying me there.The ice pellets didn't last for a longtime. I frantically picked them up from the terrace floor and handed them to the thrilled children who were jumping in glee under the shade. I had strictly told them to keep to the shade for I didn't want their mothers to come and scold me lest those little girls should catch a cold ! It was the most novel experience for a city bred person like me and I am still reveling in it, but not without a million meteorological doubts!

I immediately ran a Google about aalankatti mazhai but found very little information about it. I tried with the words 'ice pellets', 'ice rain' 'frozen rain', etc...but in vain. I'm still not sure if sleet and our Chennai's aalankatti mazhai are the same. Unfortunately, these keywords direct me to the famous song from the movie Thenali sung by Kamal Hassan.