Ring of fire

"Why does the sunlight look different today?"


V and I were coming out of the grocery store when this thought struck us.
"It looks as though we are seeing the world through sunglasses," we both uttered almost at once.

The rays cast by the sun were very different. Even though the sky was clear and cloudless, the sun-rays seemed softer. We were walking towards our car, when my eyes fell on the shadow of a tree in the parking lot. The shadow looked weird too. The light passing in between the branches of the tree cast crescent shapes on the road. That's when it struck me that we were experiencing a solar eclipse. Oh my God! I had never been outside under the sun on the day of the solar eclipse. I felt very exposed. Did I look at the Sun directly? I wish I could remember!

All through our way back home, I tried to avoid the sun. I noticed the shadows cast by trees. My Paati (grandma) was the one to teach me how to look for these crescent shapes during solar eclipse. Until then, I had no idea that the light passing between the trees always  fell as round shapes in between shadows. Each round was/is an image of the sun!

Once home, I jumped around like a little kid. I was so excited! Observe the crescent shapes of the Sun. I used a cowboy costume hat to cast the shapes on our bedroom wall.

Here are pictures of shadows of trees on a wall. Observe the crescent shapes here too.

How I wish the photos had come out better! But something is better than nothing, so we need to adjust with these till the next eclipse! ;-)