Theatre in the sky

Some were fascinated, others afraid. Some called it science, others found answers in superstition. But on October 24, the lakhs who dared to see the sun being eclipsed by the moon and the many more who chose to stay indoors shared one thing: awe.

November 15, 1995 | UPDATED 10:44 IST

The wind is shifting the dunes, a camel shuffles, the only sound in a silent Rajasthan village. A journey away, in Allahabad, against the rippling waters of the Yamuna, a sadhu murmurs. In Diamond Harbour, a 1.00,000 crowd is hesitant, unsure. This is October 24, morning, and time for the theatre of the unknown. Nature has arrived with a show. The total solar eclipse.

The light fades, a cool descends, faces tighten up, and the silence is not unreasonable. Man enjoys nature but likes it ordered. Now he finds disorder, a moon at day, a dying sun, and himself forced into a voyage of discovery, of celestial secrets rarely told.

It doesn't matter whether you understand the why of a solar eclipse. That it is a spectacular coincidence; a perfect alignment of sun. moon and earth, of the fact that the sun. whose diameter is 400 times of the moon, is hidden by the moon because the moon is 400 times closer to the earth. Simple celestial geometry for some. Whatever, it is still beautiful.

It begins with the moon nibbling daintily away at the sun. Then, as the sun is gradually obscured, it appears almost to Hare in anger, its gaseous outer layer called the corona - never visible on a normal day - raging around the edge of the moon.

In places such as Fatehpuri in Rajasthan, it is over in nine seconds, in others, such as Diamond Harbour in West Bengal, totality lingers gently for 77 seconds. Across a 2.000-km band - through Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar - where total darkness has fallen, one thing is common. Awe.

Surrounded by children, a woman watches the eclipse through a solar filter in Diamond Harbour, West bengal: the whys of the phenomenon did not matter - it was still beautiful

A nine-year-old boy from Neem ka Thana, who asks wide eyed: "I will see the stars in the daytime, won't I?" A beaming Slovakian, Professor Vogto Rusin of the Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, who says: "I have come to unlock secrets of the corona." And a trembling villager in Allapur village, 18 km from Alwar, who promises: "I will put mehndi on my animals to protect them."

Fascination and fear, science and superstition, all caught up with the sun and moon, a sort of celestial-terrestrial drama being played out across the subcontinent. Nothing grabs the throat like the unknown. And although total solar eclipses, at 66 every century, may not rank in exclusivity value for scientists, they are rare for every man. They occur only in bands across this planet, so any one point on earth, on the average, may experience no more than one total solar eclipse in three-four centuries.

A smattering of foreigners among the crowd at Fatehpur Sikri: as tourists were to found everywhere in places like Agra, a minute of magic became Indian tourism's finest marketing gimmick

It drives men to many things. The Chinese Shu Ching (Classic of History) lists one dating back to 1217 B.C.. when two semi-divine figures, Hsi and Ho, sent down by Emperor Yao to keep the sun on course, got distracted by drink and allowed an eclipse.

Sagar Chowdhury hasn't heard this one, but he won't be distracted. He stands at Diamond Harbour, among a 1.00,000 crowd, aware that another 366 years must pass before the eclipse returns to West Bengal. So, leaning on a slick, Chowdhury locks his ears on to the public-address system. So what if he is blind, he can hear the eclipse at least.

The diamond ring: the eclipse's dark shining moment

If nature spurs this man. its magnificence makes others lose their bearings. After decades of earning a livelihood with his camera, photographer Ashok Mazumdar of West Bengal forgets to shoot the corona - he is so dazzled. Yet not all are enthralled. Farmer Tulsiram of Allapur, for whom daylight signals labour, said quietly: "Well, if darkness comes that means no work."

So be it, but Tulsiram was missing quite a party, a minute or so of magic becoming tourism's finest marketing gimmick. Said Dilip Singh, owner of an Agra motel: "I've never seen such crowds; there are tourists on the roof, in my staff quarters everywhere." "In Europe." says Nathan, a hippie-looking backpacker in Fatehpur Sikri, "they've been advertising eclipse parties for months."

The corona: the sun's gaseous outer layer, which is not visible on a normal day, rages around the edge of the moon as the sun becomes almost obscured

There was less party and more prayer in Kurukshetra, where 5.00.000 people arrived, Rs 1.5 crore was spent and a 9 km special road built for VIPs to reach the Brahma Sarovar. Recent floods. Diwali the previous night, and the discovery of fibre-glass bombs a week before hurt the turnout, but not the ritual.

As the eclipse began, the arena exploded with shlokas and mantras, the air at the Brahma Sarovar - considered the altar of god Brahma's yajna - laced with incense smoke from a hundred havans. The fading sun almost obscured, sadhus blew conches and meditated in equal measure.

In Allapul; 18 km from Alwal; a woman andu child watching the eclipse

Similar scenes were enacted across the line of totality. At Diamond Harbour, one fellow brought along a welder's mask to watch through. In Allahabad, a priest turned to castigate a man eating breakfast for breaking his fast, but shrugged in resignation saying, "In this age I suppose it doesn't make a difference."

Sudhus praying in Allahabad

Charity too was part of the process, Urmila, a beggar from Mathura, said: "It's a god-sent opportunity for us to make good earnings here at Kurukshetra." At Bombay's plush Malabar Hill, hundreds gather, like Ambaji and Dulabai Chavan, labourers from Solapur, waiting patiently for rice and cash to rain down from the skyscrapers. They are not disappointed; in the chaos that follows, Dulabai triumphantly grabs and clutches close an old petticoat.

An Allapur boy enjoys the spectacle; inspiring fear and awe

But beyond the tourists, the mesmerised brave at Diamond Harbour, the dipping dutiful at Allahabad, lay a different world. On 23rd night, Reeta Devi sat in Allahabad's Kamla Nehru Hospital, pregnant and nervous that her child may be born during the eclipse. The sun emits blue rays, it spews poisonous gases, children born during eclipse are deformed, perhaps she has heard these stories.

Putting dung on the abdomen is a sure safeguard, but she says the problem with being in a hospital is that she can't. Eventually, she bribes an attendant who brings some. She is safe. Sunita, also pregnant, covers her window panes in Chandigarh with dark paper and lies motionless on her bed. And she is a Ph.D. scholar from Punjab University.

Rationalists are furious, but they fight a failing battle. One man, a young doctor in Alwar, manipulates these fears well. He convinces villagers to get their children vaccinated against the evil aftereffects of the eclipse: a fine excuse for the polio vaccines he is actually administering among a normally reluctant community. But he cannot dissolve its fears.

Poficernen watching the eclipse near Allapur

Nidhi Gupta, a class IX student from Delhi's Vasant Valley School, on an outing to Bharatpur, says smartly: "All this (the myths) is bullshit." Still, in Delhi, the streets bear a curfew's signature. so barren are they of life during the eclipse. In Bombay, science tutor Mohammed Salim Khan stands with only seven students at the Nehru Planetarium, his offer of a "chance of a lifetime" spurned politely by most.

Aghast, he says: "In this city, people only respond to the smell of cash." Yet other cities lay quiet too, stalked by fear, and reminding of a poem by the Greek poet, Archilocus. Attributing the eclipse of April 16. 648 B.C., to Zeus, he wrote, "He made night from midday, hiding the light of the shining sun and sore fear came upon men."

Two foreigners meditating in Allahabad: though myths and superstitions still prevailed, rationalists were pleased that more people across the country watched the eclipse this time

In Kurukshetra, devotees sat with their back to the sun. In Narayanur, 7 km from Diamond Harbour, Rabindra Tikadar wouldn't even answer nature's call: down the road. Saraswati Haldar kept her children hungry through the eclipse - all these omens of disaster. Terror was racing down every highway.

At Chinaro village near Ranchi, the Munda tribals, aghast at their Singa Bonga (the supreme power represented by the sun) being eaten by the demon. Dewan, beat utensils to ward off the demon, chanted mantras and brought paddy to place in front of  the eclipsed sun. Said Gahnu Munda, 70: "If our prayer is accepted, we will have a good crop next season."

Children observing from a boat at Diamond Harbour

Astrologers, who find an omen and an audience everywhere, were handing out predictions on request. Some of it routine stuff like floods and violence, not to mention tough days ahead for anyone with a politician's cap. Others were more bizarre, none more so than "unusually good political weather in Bihar" and "a peak period for sexually transmitted diseases".

But beyond this little frivolity lay a disquiet, for astrologers duelled with scientists over which force - physical or metaphysical - guided this phenomenon.

School children in Bharatpur observing the total eclipse in darkness, the only illumination being the photographer's flash

Astrologer B.V Raman, another calamity predictor, rapped scientists by claiming no studies had been made on the after-effects of the eclipse: counters came quickly from Madras' Institute of Mathematical Studies which sneered back at Raman's further claim that water would be contaminated, asking whether the city's reservoirs had been polluted in the 1980 eclipse.

But some, like 77-year-old Sanskrit scholar Thamal Srinivasa Iyengar of Triplicane, chose a middle path. Having performed his tharpanam - a ritualistic offering to his forefathers - he donned a pair of solar filters to see what science had to offer.

People in Diamond Harbour watching through plates full of water: at 66 eclipses occurring every century, they are rare for every man, as any point on earth may experience on more than one total solar eclipse in 3-4 centuries

But there have been some victories. The All India People's Science Network and the Bharatiya Gyan Vigyan Samithi, armed with 1,500 volunteers, traversed through the line of totality staging street plays, lecturing schools and organising telescopes for villagers. Says national coordinator P.M. Narayanan: "We want to demystify all this and spread the message of science." And if they have left some realism behind, they also return with beautiful stories, like the one from tribal Madhya Pradesh where it is believed the sun makes love to the moon to create new worlds.

The stories can, and will, continue endlessly. And it is awesome really. That on one morning, in a rush of a minute, so much is revealed. The sheer magnificence of a minor moment of nature. And the effect it has on a nation's life. Said a group of boys at Diamond Harbour, perhaps echoing a larger call: "Can someone organise an action replay of this?"

