Anything for the Universe!

Anything for the Universe

The year was 1983, and I was in grade 8. It was winter, and the skies were clear. We were living in our new home in Koramangala, Bangalore. During one of my various cycling trips in the area, I discovered that the Indian Institute of Astrophysics was just a few kilometers away. Excited, I went in one evening. Not knowing where to go, I kept wandering the lawns of the institute. A man, who was sitting on the lawn called me, and we started talking. I learnt that he was doing his research on the Sun. As our conversation went on, and I told him that astronomy was my favorite, he invited me to his room, and started sharing some of his ideas. My amazement knew no bounds. Here I was, talking to an astronomer, and astronomy was my pet subject, though no one in school was prepared to discuss it! Most of the time, my teachers just stuck to the books.

Finally, he asked me if I had seen through the telescope. When I said ‘No’, he offered to take me to the terrace, where the institute had a 6 inch reflector telescope, and said that he would show me the night sky. This was the ultimate treat! Unfortunately that evening, he did not have the keys to the terrace door, which was locked. I was disappointed. ‘Come after a week’, Balasubramaniam (Bala) said. ‘There is a lunar occultation of Saturn, and you could see that…but you will need to be here at 4 in the morning. I don’t know how you will manage that. And keep in touch, drop in anytime you want.’

In my excitement, I furiously cycled home, planning and plotting how to leave home at such an early hour the next week. I told my parents about it. They were clearly unhappy about my going alone at that hour. Just when I thought it was all over for the lunar occultation, I had a brilliant idea – just before my parents slept, when they were not noticing, I would advance the time of the clock in the living room by two hours. So, when the clock would show 0530, it would actually be 0330 in the morning – I would just have enough time to reach the institute! I somehow managed to convince my parents that leaving at 0530 was not a bad idea, after all! Of course, I had to keep a vigil on the clock, which meant that I couldn’t sleep all night…

The other condition was that they were not happy with my taking out my cycle – this meant that I had to jog all the way, some 2 or 3 kilometers away. So be it, I thought – I was ready to give anything to see the universe! The plan worked wonderfully well, except that I almost collapsed by the time I reached the institute at 0410. Before I left home, I adjusted the clock’s time back to normal, so that they wouldn’t notice!

The first peep was nothing short of a divine experience. Till then, I had only seen some photographs of the solar system in books in the school library. This was seeing it live! I caught the moon coming in front of Saturn’s rings, and then the entire planet itself was shut out by the moon. For the first time, I was able to see the craters on the moon, and the shadows they cast on its surface – amazing! Boy! Didn’t those Saturn rings look beautiful?! And then, Bala showed me Jupiter, and its four satellites (there are many more, but I could see only 4 – probably Ganymede, Io, Europa, etc). Of special interest was the red spot, the mystery red spot about which astronomers have all sorts of theories. In 2006, they probably know much more about it, though I’m not sure if anyone has the last word as yet. The red spot is several times the size of the earth…how big it must be, I wondered! I could also make out the various color bands of Jupiter.

If I were to write this today in Winch’s terms, my love for astronomy with all its mysteries of the universe, made me take all these steps to catch that celestial phenomenon, occurring millions of kilometers away in time and space! My date with the cosmos had been kept. Like the occultation, which was an event in the cosmos (from the point of view of reference of earthlings like us), my being able to see it was another major event in my life, which remains vivid to this day. My parents wouldn’t believe I had gone to this extent to look up at the heavens. They did feel puzzled about how time had passed that morning for them…I kept the secret to myself.

My enthusiasm and love for astronomy and for discovering the mysteries of this universe in which we live, never waned. Years later, as a teacher, I managed to transmit this excitement to the children I taught in the Valley School in Bangalore. We repaired the damaged telescope that was lying in the lab, and enjoyed many hours of star gazing in the football field where sometimes elephants and panthers also roamed…I also started an astronomy club during my tenure as teacher.

Giri
September 2006