Reminiscing moonlit nights

It was like being transported to a different world, a distant one

Have you recently basked in the splendour of a moonlit winter night? I haven’t. In fact, I can hardly recall the last time I truly savoured a magnificent full moon.

There was a time in my life several decades ago when I thoroughly enjoyed the full moon and its exuberance. Back then nights were dead silent, except for the occasional chirping of cicadas. I along with my mother and two elder sisters would sit under the canopy of the large mango tree in the front courtyard on a large mat. The cool moonlight filtered through the thick canopy and rained on the ground creating irregular shadows. At midnight, the village mongrels howled loudly at the sight of the dark shadows dancing in the moonlight. As my mother and sisters would engage in lively gossip, I would stare at the clear night sky studded with a million sparkling stars. As I sat there lost in a world of my own, I felt as if being transported to a different world, a distant one. The untethered joy was indescribable, a sensation that defied words.

During the silent transition of our sleepy village into a small town and later an urban suburb, we were blessed with many modern amenities such as electricity, banishing darkness and fear. Yet, in the process, we lost the simple pleasure of witnessing full moon nights in all their natural glory. The generation that followed mine never experienced the serene beauty of moonlit nights. Though artificial lights have altered our lives in ways that are unimaginable, we have to pay a price for it. Light pollution, an oft-overlooked issue, disrupts the circadian rhythms of birds, animals, and humans alike. We recognise air, water, and sound pollution, but light pollution remains a blind spot which has failed to get the attention it deserves.

Occasionally we collectively observe the Earth Hour by turning off all lights and other gadgets, an initiative to save energy and reduce emissions. Why not replicate this locally? Let’s turn off artificial lights for an hour or two during full moon nights, reducing energy consumption and allowing people to revel in moonlit splendour. In those rare occasions of a blue moon, when we see two full moons in a month, the joy will get doubled. And the prospect of a super moon, when the moon is at its closest to the earth making it brighter and larger than usual, is mindboggling.

tnvgopal@gmail.com

Published - November 24, 2024 01:41 am IST