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| From Times of India |
Sporadic monsoon clouds
smudge the night sky as I look out for the moon which struggles to shine
through the haze. There’s going to be
partial lunar eclipse tonight, the newspapers say. I’m interested in eclipses. I am an eclipse myself.
The most memorable
eclipse was when I was in Shillong. It
was in the last decade of the millennium.
I was sitting with a friend in his room when the air outside resounded
with sounds of tin drums. We came out to
see what was happening. Everybody was
celebrating something. Our landlady
rushed to us with two tin drums and asked us to join. It took us a while to grasp what was going
on. There was a solar eclipse. The people believed that a dragon was
swallowing the sun and the tin drums were meant to scare the dragon away. Since the landlady insisted that we join in
liberating the sun from the dragon, we did lest we be accused of gross
neglect. How criminal it would be to let
the sun be swallowed by a dragon? Moreover,
it gave us much thrill to think that our tin drums were going to make
themselves heard 150,000,000 km away. It
gratified our egos, to say the least. My
friend and I contributed our bit to the cacophony.
I don’t know how many
people in that whole horde of drum beaters actually believed that they were
delivering the sun from the dragon. The
passion with which most of them beat the drums indicated that they were indeed
serious about their mission. Aren’t
quite many of our rituals similar ego-gratifications? How great we must feel to perceive ourselves
as warriors against the powerful devils out there in the vast space around us!
If the heavens permit me,
if the clouds clear, I shall stand outside tonight, beneath the diaphanous sky,
in the penetrating quietness of the bucolic darkness except for the vibrating
tymbals of cicadas in the leaves, I shall stand gazing at the moon being
eclipsed slowly, partially, slowly…
Nice...
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteSometimes we have to do things like that, tin drums.. however a new and novel concept.
ReplyDeleteBut the clouds have become darker, the moon has vanished... Tin drums would land me in a mad house here in this small village in Kerala! 😀
DeleteWell the tradition of making noise to scare away the dragon from swallowing the sun is across the cultures in various parts of the world. I got to know about the mythology and practices only yesterday while browsing about blind beliefs that goes with an eclipse . Nice to have experienced it in person .
ReplyDeleteTrue, many people have that belief and practice. It's also fun for many, I guess.
DeleteThank you for sharing this wonderful and amusing memory. I missed watching the eclipse last night :\
ReplyDeleteI couldn't catch it either Purba because of the clouds.
DeleteLoved the poetry in this prose. Traditions are practiced followed blindly from generation to generation. The strong that you have narrated would be a good theme for a children's book. I have read somewhat similar one where the moon is being swallowed by a dragon and the animals come together to chase it away - the message there is quite different than the thing that was happening in Shilling however.
ReplyDeleteMoon and eclipses make me poetic 😊😊
DeleteFor tonight, Tomichan, the cicadas would suffice. But for tonight.
ReplyDeleteThe sun awaits us on the other shore with shrieking cacophony of tin drums. But for tonight let's be happy with the cicadas.
Ephemeral pleasures are my birthright 😁😁
DeleteI did venture out and managed to click some pictures of this amazing celestial phenomenon.... :-)
ReplyDeleteI saw your post even before you mentioned it here.
Delete