Star Trail

It was one of those windy nights on a cold day; wind had made it freezing enough to ground everyone within the boundary defined by light from the florescent bulbs mixed with heat from the heater. The day had been cloudy and sun played hide and seek amongst the dense cloud all day long. Finally the game ended and sun was setting amongst the distant clouds, coloring them into beautiful shades of red and orange. At dusk, wind started catching-up, as if it had been scared of the sun and now when the cat’s away, the mice will play.

Sun setting amongst clouds is a very mesmerizing phenomenon and undoubtedly a nice time to bring in a SLR and click some pictures, but this was just a bonus for me; I was waiting for the pitch dark sky so that I could capture the golf session of starts in the infinite stretch of the universe. With clouds still dominating the sky, I was disappointed, as I may not get to capture the stars which I have been waiting for.

I packed my camera and joined friends for a session of cricket. With night growing darker; we realized that the time was perfect to fire the grill. Chicken and veggies had been marinating for over a day and flavors had got plenty of time to seep in. As the spices burned over the grill, aroma of spices mixed with that of burning wood, filled the patio. Grill was feeding the abyss, as the combined hunger of everyone was endless. It was midnight before the feast would end, weather still being cold and windy, everyone decided to spend rest of night being warm under blankets and singing songs in chorus. I looked at the sky, and for my surprise, it was clear as crystal, wind had done its job and a smile rolled on my face. I quickly grabbed a jacket and my camera and stepped out of the house into the jungles.

It was an amazingly clear sky, the clearest I have ever seen and was beautifully lit up with millions of stars. Stars were so pretty, I wanted to fill them all in my eyes, but pair of eyes is not enough to contain the beauty. I could see the Milky Way stretching beyond horizons. Quickly I setup my camera on a well-balanced tripod and left the camera shutter open for 30 minutes, I wanted to capture the star trail. The earth spins around its axis, giving an effect as if the sky had moved around instead. If a camera’s shutter is opened for longer durations, one can capture the movement of stars around earth resulting in star trail. Well, 30 minutes was definitely a very short time period to capture a complete star trail, but I realized it late.

Once the camera was staring at the sky, I had nothing to do for next 30 minutes. Using torchlight was risky, as the light may overexpose the picture. I understood that I was doing all this alone, everyone else were singing and celebrating in the warmth of a shelter and under bright lights, whereas a true artist, i.e. myself, was shivering, out in the jungles, in middle of night, at a place where eyes could hardly see through the densest of dense darkness. Wind was whisking as if it wanted to wipe out the jungle from face of this planet. Trees brushed against each other, grass danced on the tunes of wind and appeared like angry serpents, ready to embrace anyone one who dares to walk through them.

I could care less about the dangers and ignored the darkness because I was aiming for stars. To kill the time, I decided to locate all the constellations I could identify. It is month of May, majestic Virgo would have been hiding somewhere and I searched for it, but no were to be found, instead I could see bunch of every day constellations like Big dipper, Ursa Mjor, Orion, Scorpios and few more. Soon my thoughts drifted and though I was looking at the sky, I was wondering who in the ancient world might have proposed, sky gazing was a good idea? How they might have seen bunch of stars aligned and would have imagined some creature figure in them and later how they might have sold this idea to everyone?

After 30 minutes out in jungle, my alarm went off and broke my concentration, now I could feel the chill crawling up my spine. Suddenly I was scared, green grass was just dark, cold and emotionless, it started growing over me. I could hear each sound very distinctly, the squeaky noise trees made as they rubbed against each other, cry of branches about to be torn off, chirping of crickets and hissing of the wild grass.

I grabbed my camera and gushed back to where everyone was still singing in chorus. I didn't wanted to turn back and see if someone was following me, or maybe I was too scared to turn back.