Totality: an experience

Last Monday, as the moon swallowed the sun, a great solar eclipse was visible across the US. Such a totality was seen 38 years ago and we were among those few fortunate ones to experience this suryagrahan. Chasing the sun at Newberry, 200 miles off South Carolina’s Myrtal beach, it was a glorious experience for us as visitors from Bengaluru.

The said location was picked as it offered the best view of the eclipse lasting 2 minutes 40 seconds. Even though the weekly weather predictions seemed rather unfavourable, the weather gods blessed the eager viewers with a clear sky at that point. Nevertheless, we kept our fingers crossed. Upon our arrival at the locality, we were delighted to see the festive mood of the crowd that had gathered from far and near. Cars drove in as early as 9 am to watch the totality.

Local attractions in the form of food stalls and music bands had the crowd grooving and merry making. Information stalls set up made the scientific occurrence less oesoteric and a lot of learning the fun way for children. The excitement was palpable when people began wearing protective eye-glasses in all shapes and sizes, and even used cereal boxes to make dark glasses.

The partial eclipse started at 1.30 pm, and lasted an hour while the sun slowly melted away from the edges. Then came the Baily’s beads effect, when the moon allowed the sunlight to shine through in some places, forming white spots. Just a few seconds before totality, the diamond ring formation allowed a very bright flash on the side of the circumference. Once the moon completely covered the sun, it was just a dark ring and then darkness for two minutes when all of nature lay still in confused silence. It was unbelievable to witness darkness at noon!

The crowd was ecstatic but also well-behaved. Even before one could fully comprehend this awe-inspiring celestial display, the moon began moving away revealing a growing crescent of the sun. An overload of media information ensured that glasses were provided for safe viewing. But, while it was safe to view totality without glasses, we had to put them on again as the moon began to drift away.

A regular eclipse chaser who had travelled the world to observe such phenomena told us that watching an eclipse was as mind boggling as the birth of a new life. This was thrilling nature at its best. It had absolutely no religious or astrological connotations, unlike in certain countries where an eclipse is no light matter, and is linked to dragons, demons, doomsday predictions, wars and earth quakes.

For us, it was a deeply emotional moment to see the solar system in motion: a visceral experience. The quest for this feeling had led millions to put all their worries on hold and flock to parks, trails, beaches, travelling for hours and days. All said and done, we bathed and washed ourselves to ward off the rahu-ketu effe­ct after the event, sang a couple of sun-the­med songs and recited slokas before dining on the coastline of the Atlantic ocean.