I was introduced to Swati, Chitra, Abhijeet, Ashlesha, Yuti and some more on Saturday night. It was a night which definitely was different and interesting. The very thought that I was going to spend my whole night there amongst these interesting bodies made me excited and eager to know what awaited next. I was experiencing the joy of being in open. The happiness of getting to know a different world! A new experience altogether! It was a dark clear night with countless number of stars in the sky. Abhi and I left from home at 2.30 in the afternoon and we knew we had a long and humid journey to make till Dombivili. We were to reach there by 4.15pm and we made it just on time..
We saw that a crowd of around 15 people had already gathered at the fifth platform of the station and Kishore was busy managing it all. Waiting for more people to pour in it delayed the onwards journey by an hour. We then started for Kalyan and from there took an ST bus for Mamnoli after 6pm. The journey was of around an hour but as we proceeded on the bumpy road we realized that the air was becoming cooler and gradually we were out of the city on a road from where I could smell village surroundings. We got down on middle of a road and then after walking for few minutes came to a very serene place where I saw some chairs placed, a cow shed, a tap nearby and a dome like structure made of raw mud with bamboo atop. It had a beautiful lantern placed in the center. This was where we had the delicious poha and tea. Wasting no further time we walked around 100mts and reached an open ground. It was huge and clean. We all removed our grounsheets/bedsheets and formed a big circle. We were introduced to the Hindu Seva Sangh chief , Mr. Deshmukh and he told us about the activities they carry out for homeless and needy children. They run three schools for students who cannot afford schooling otherwise due to monetary problems. He spoke in Marathi and so did most others present there. I instantly took up the role of interpreter and a translator for my husband Abhishek J
Mr. Hemant Mone came after the HSS introduction and his pleasant smile instantly conveyed that he was going to be a charmer and interesting to listen to. He told us about Akashmitra group, a group involved in astronomy since years together. We were waiting for the session to start and then pointed to the brightest star in the sky towards the west and we all knew it was the planet Venus. Lemme recollect other interesting facts which he told about in the sky. Near Venus there is a paralellogram form from four stars which acts as the gateway for all planets. By June end Sun would be inside this paralellogram, It was after this that he introduced two more bright stars Chitra and Swati. Of these Chitra is in part of the east-west belt. I got to know that Yuti name refers to eclipse condition when moon covers the Sun.
Astronomy is rather interesting and there is so much to discover. It seems in 1928 a total of 88 constellations were discovered. We enjoyed tracing our paths to identify the two snakes in the sky, namely Hydra and Draco. We also came to know that there is lot of mathematics involved in calculating the relative positioning, future predictions etc about the stars and other objects.The greatest elongation that Venus can achieve is 43-45 degrees as it lies within the earth in our Solar system. We then actually got to see the planet through a telescope mounted on the ground. There were two of them, of which one was imported from USA and had automatic tracking system which means that once the focus is set on an object then the telescope would track its movement and automatically reposition itself. Venus which appears as just a tiny bright spot through the naked eyes was big enough through telescope and we were able to see its half-moon kind of shape.
The next planet in line to be introduced was Saturn or 'Shani' as we call it in Hindi. The most beautiful planet indeed! It takes 30 years for Saturn to complete its rotation around Sun. He also explained the logic of the concept of the Hindi term 'saade-sati' which was derived at by 30/12 = 2.5; 2.5 * 3 = 7. The telescopic view of this planet was breathtaking. We could see it in the tilted position with the distinct rings around it just like we have been seeing in our geography books. Abhi stood in the queue for more than once to get better view of this planet. I did not have that much patience :D
In between the session we would just lie down and stare at the sky trying to identify shapes and locate satellites.
We saw that a crowd of around 15 people had already gathered at the fifth platform of the station and Kishore was busy managing it all. Waiting for more people to pour in it delayed the onwards journey by an hour. We then started for Kalyan and from there took an ST bus for Mamnoli after 6pm. The journey was of around an hour but as we proceeded on the bumpy road we realized that the air was becoming cooler and gradually we were out of the city on a road from where I could smell village surroundings. We got down on middle of a road and then after walking for few minutes came to a very serene place where I saw some chairs placed, a cow shed, a tap nearby and a dome like structure made of raw mud with bamboo atop. It had a beautiful lantern placed in the center. This was where we had the delicious poha and tea. Wasting no further time we walked around 100mts and reached an open ground. It was huge and clean. We all removed our grounsheets/bedsheets and formed a big circle. We were introduced to the Hindu Seva Sangh chief , Mr. Deshmukh and he told us about the activities they carry out for homeless and needy children. They run three schools for students who cannot afford schooling otherwise due to monetary problems. He spoke in Marathi and so did most others present there. I instantly took up the role of interpreter and a translator for my husband Abhishek J
Mr. Hemant Mone came after the HSS introduction and his pleasant smile instantly conveyed that he was going to be a charmer and interesting to listen to. He told us about Akashmitra group, a group involved in astronomy since years together. We were waiting for the session to start and then pointed to the brightest star in the sky towards the west and we all knew it was the planet Venus. Lemme recollect other interesting facts which he told about in the sky. Near Venus there is a paralellogram form from four stars which acts as the gateway for all planets. By June end Sun would be inside this paralellogram, It was after this that he introduced two more bright stars Chitra and Swati. Of these Chitra is in part of the east-west belt. I got to know that Yuti name refers to eclipse condition when moon covers the Sun.
Astronomy is rather interesting and there is so much to discover. It seems in 1928 a total of 88 constellations were discovered. We enjoyed tracing our paths to identify the two snakes in the sky, namely Hydra and Draco. We also came to know that there is lot of mathematics involved in calculating the relative positioning, future predictions etc about the stars and other objects.The greatest elongation that Venus can achieve is 43-45 degrees as it lies within the earth in our Solar system. We then actually got to see the planet through a telescope mounted on the ground. There were two of them, of which one was imported from USA and had automatic tracking system which means that once the focus is set on an object then the telescope would track its movement and automatically reposition itself. Venus which appears as just a tiny bright spot through the naked eyes was big enough through telescope and we were able to see its half-moon kind of shape.
The next planet in line to be introduced was Saturn or 'Shani' as we call it in Hindi. The most beautiful planet indeed! It takes 30 years for Saturn to complete its rotation around Sun. He also explained the logic of the concept of the Hindi term 'saade-sati' which was derived at by 30/12 = 2.5; 2.5 * 3 = 7. The telescopic view of this planet was breathtaking. We could see it in the tilted position with the distinct rings around it just like we have been seeing in our geography books. Abhi stood in the queue for more than once to get better view of this planet. I did not have that much patience :D
In between the session we would just lie down and stare at the sky trying to identify shapes and locate satellites.
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