21st August 2017 : The day when I experienced a magic
You must have heard about solar eclipse, the diamond ring, the totality , the Baily’s beads. You must also have seen them online on YouTube, NASA’s broadcast and many other channels.You should have watched this most marvelous and awe-inspiring nature’s event many times too. But have you experienced “Being under the shadow” yet?
” हा सूर्य आणि हा जयद्रथ ” a famous Marathi quote from a story in Mahabharata, when lord Shri Krishna created a shadow of his Sudarshan Chakra over the sun to create an illusion of sunset aka a total solar eclipse. This was to help Arjuna kill Jaydrath and complete his revenge of his son’s death. I heard this story numerous times as a kid but honestly never realized the feeling everyone on the kurukshetra might have had until I experienced this myself.
I’m & I’ll be forever thankful to Amol for pushing me through my denial to visit the right place at the right time under right conditions. He knew it from his past experience with “Khagol Mandal – A mumbai based group of astronomy enthusiasts” . He had experienced it and rightly so wanted to me and Agastya to get the same experience. But I was not completely wrong with my denial. Only most stupid person will pay $945 for a night’s stay at a shady motel in Jackson Hole, WY. Yes it was us who paid that much for one night’s stay at that place. We tried really hard since January of that year to find a decent place near the path of totality from where we can quickly get to a spot to watch the eclipse but little did we know that there are thousands of other folks who were desperately looking for the same. In fact, they did it much before us. On 22nd August 2016, the Teton parks department opened the reservations for August 2017 and on the same day all the park lodges, camp sites were all booked.But good news was for whatever cost, we found the right place to stay on the night of 20th August.
The partial shadow of the moon started appearing around 10 and we were all set with our camera, camcorder and phone to capture the amazement. It was summer and it was sunny and HOT !Around 11:30 the baily’s beads started appearing and following that was the diamond ring. The temperature dropped by almost 30 degrees and the birds started chirping like they do at the dusk. And suddenly it was all dark… the street lights were turned on automatically… Amol was managing the big camera and the lenses so he handed me the camcorder to record but I was stunned and only thing the I said “Do hell with the recording !! ” And I did experience one of the most amazing couple of minutes in my life.
You do not have to be a scientist Or an astronomer, or a millionaire with fancy telescope to enjoy this experience. But on August 21st, 2017, I realized that being under this shadow of the moon, is one of the most special experiences of anyone’s life. Looking forward to experience this amazement again on April 8th 2024 from right here in Austin,TX.
