I was sitting under the pristinely clear night in a small farm house near Korategere. The small group of people who had gathered, aged anywhere between 7 to 70, were enthusiastically looking up the sky with awe. With almost no light in the viscinity (except for the small light inside the farm house), it was an ideal setting to witness a rare celestial event: Total Lunar Eclipse. I was lucky that a friend who was part of Bangalore Astronomical Society (BAS), asked me join him for a lunar eclipse gazing trip on December 10.
It has been a long time, except for the one-night star gazing trip to Vangani during my IITB tenure, I had been hardly in touch with my childhood passion and couldn't say No. Korategere is about 100 kms from Bangalore, on the way to the fort town of Madhugiri. The farm house was in a small village off Korategere, Doddamallyanapalya, and was located far away from the city lights.
Sitting on the rocky surface covered with tall grass, I saw the moonlight been slowly gobbled by an unknown shadow. A lot of cameras, some fitted with telescopes were busy clicking the celestial marvel. I decided to put to rest the camera and binocular I had been using and sat down on the grass to immerse myself in the world around. I felt the same way as our ancients, who too would have looked up to these celestial events with similar awe. The setting I was in would have been no different than in those days, and they surely wouldn't have dull reasons like watching TV. But their perception of the events were far different from ours.
The Vikings thought that the dreaded wolf was eating away the moon. The Pomo Indians of California feared the bear was swallowing the round milky ball. The Chinese thought that the dragon was swallowing it. And our own ancestors called that the Ashura Rahu was gobbling up Chandra. While the stories may be different, the thin fine line that connects them is easily visible: it always is attributed to their dreaded enemies. Wolves were the Scandinavian vikings' fiercest enemies. Even today, California has enough of problems with the human-blackbear altercations. China always feared dragons (real or imaginary) and in Indian mythology the enemy of the mythological heroes are almost always portrayed as an Asura.
A chuckle came out of me when some of these thoughts went through my head, for some kids who were in our group, knew the precise scientific reasons behind the eclipse. While that knowledge is acquired rather than experienced, our ancestors didn't have much choice but to wait, watch and guess. Just sitting in the dark and looking at the strange happening, I can't think of anything better than the ancients did. Today with all the repository of knowledge available, we have even gone to the extent of ridiculing our ancestors like: "They thought the world was flat".
It is no doubt that the sky has impacted human's intellectual evolution profoundly over a period of time. Whether it is subjugation in the form of superstitions or the observations and propositions which broke the superstitions; Whether it is the belief of how they control our daily lives, or how we today explore to see if life exist over there; Whether it is where the Gods roam and keep a watch on us, or it is where the satellites roam and spy us.
It is no wonder why most of science enthusiastic kids' in our times, had their future ambition of becoming an astronaut (or cosmonaut). The friend from BAS, Keerthi, who organized the trip, mentioned during our discussion about how it is very difficult today to impress upon kids about astronomy. He shared his experience on how, during star gazing shows, kids were more interested in the laser beam or the computer software used, rather than the infinity that lies ahead of them. It is not the kids' fault, for today, given the explosion of things around us, scientific curiosity has lots of avenues with shorter 'time to understanding' and astronomy will be tough to project. But given the very important skills of patience and dedication that astronomy teaches, it is important for the next generation to appreciate.
During our trip, a kid suddenly was excited shouting, "Look, that star is moving so fast, how is it possible?". "It is not a star, but a man-made satellite orbiting earth and the light you see is that reflected from its solar panels", remarked a thoughtful head. The reasoning apart, the kid had found, during a careful observation that something different from his understanding is happening. The excitement in the kid's words told how much joy a small learning, after prolonged observation can bring.
It tells how much looking up to the sky matters a lot.
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