The early morning of 24 Oct. 1995 found me speeding in a Maruti car on the Delhi Jaipur highway enroute to Pragpura -- on the centerline of the moon's shadow as it rushed across the Indian subcontinent for the first time since February 16, 1980. I was travelling with friends to see a natural phenomenon about which much has been written. But this was going to be a first hand experience and I knew it would be different. As the east began to turn red we could see Mercury rise above the Eastern horizon, very bright and distinctly yellowish. Fortunately, the sky was as clear as could be, not a speck of cloud anywhere. For once, Murphy's law failed.
At 0700 the sun rose as yet unblemished by the shadow of our only natural satellite, our pulse raced for we were still 30 km away from our destination. We were travelling at a 100 km/hr along one of the finest highways in the country. Traffic was surprisingly thin. The reason became apparent a little while later when we saw trucks and buses going off the road and stopping, waiting for the DREADED eclipse to occur. We reached Pragpura at 7:24:00 the eclipse started half a minute later. We had travelled 170 km in 2 hours and made it in time.
Pragpura was a popular destination for foreigners as well as Indians and there must have been about 500 people there that day. We walked to the middle of a field where we met a large group from Pune. People were watching the sun with goggles and projecting the rapidly thinning crescent onto sheets of paper. Someone had a straw hat which was used to generate hundreds of tiny images of the sun. People had put white bedsheets on the ground in expectation of shadow bands.
Totality was slated for 0833 and was to last about 50 seconds. After eight there was a sudden drop in temperature. As we talked, the morning light faded to late evening levels, but with a difference. At sunset, light coming from the sun is reddish in color. Here it was still yellow. The landscape was bathed in an ethereal light. At 0830 everyone was asked to face North-West the direction from which the umbral shadow would approach. As totality approached the level of darkness increased suddenly. We saw no shadow approach, but suddenly the ground was patterned by alternate layers of dark and light moving around randomly. These were the shadow bands. A couple of seconds later the shadow disappeared. All of us wheeled round to look at the sun, for the first time without eclipse goggles --- totality was here.
As we looked at the eclipsed sun, a sight more wonderful than any I have seen met my eyes. The DIAMOND RING seen in such incredible clarity and brilliance impossible to capture on film in its real glory. Everyone was shouting in ecstasy. Moments later the ring disappeared and the sun was fully covered by the moon.
The sun's outer atmosphere, the CORONA was clearly visible stretching out in two great lobes, one to the East and one to the West. A jet trail was visible too. We learnt later that this was the IAF MiG-29 chasing the moon's shadow. Mercury was visible high in the sky and Venus was shining near the horizon. It was really dark, about as dark as it gets 45 minutes after sunset. And as we watched, someone shouted "10 seconds left". There was sudden silence laced with expectation - a pregnant silence if there ever was one.
The sun burst forth once again. Again for a few fleeting seconds, we saw the diamond ring another time. Arvind was shouting "Put on your goggles, put on your goggles". We reluctantly put them on. The moment had passed. It was all over. But the memory of those moments will be treasured for a lifetime.
Everyone was smiling and hugging one another. We left a few minutes later already making plans for Aug 12 1999. Someone said "Wait till the year 2167. Then you will have 7 minutes of totality." I want to live to be 195 years old.