I've always wanted to see a total eclipse - so what luck, I thought, that Kolkata would experience a 90% eclipse while I happened to be here! I heard about two gathering places in the city to watch it - at the Birla Planetarium and at Science City. I considered going, but in the end decided to try and watch from the courtyard by my temporary apartment.
Unfortunately, this eclipse happened during the monsoon, which means lots of potential cloud cover. Though the paper today had great pictures from viewing in the town of Varanasi, where heavy rains the night before cleared out the clouds by morning, Kolkata was not so lucky. Some parts of the city experienced a three minute break in the clouds right near the peak, but unfortunately my viewing spot was not so blessed. And, because it occurred around at 6:30 in the morning with faint morning light, I could only just perceive the sky darkening. Noise provided the most obvious sign of the eclipse to me - all the birds and dogs made a ruckus right at the peak time. Strange, but people say animals have a stronger internal sense for some things, right?
My quest to see an eclipse will thus continue. I doubt I'll be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time again, but with this job, who knows?
1 comment:
I actually wondered about this. The reports we heard here in the US about the eclipse said that, in India, pregnant women are not supposed to view an eclipse because it will harm the baby in some way.
So did you hear this? Did your nanny/housekeeper discourage you from watching?
Or was this just US media nonsense?
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