Total Solar Eclipse

From Total Solar Eclipse

This morning we were all surprised at the splendour of the eclipse of the century. We have been longing for rain, but when I woke up to the sound of rain falling on my roof I was worried that our prayers had been heard just one day too soon.
As you can see in the photos there were some clouds, but we could see the sun except twice, first it was eclipsed by clouds for almost a minute and then the it hid behind the moon.
We could not have hoped for a better view of the eclipse.
My Ayah told me the story of how Ghona demands that the Sun repaid the loan she took when creating the Earth, the humans and all the other things in it. The Sun will never be able to make the final payment and so Ghona has her punished.
All Hindus, she said, plead with Ghona to release the Sun again. My Ayah admitted that she herself had stopped her cooking fire as a concession to that story when the Sun disappeared. She has heard a modern explanation of the phenomenon involving the Moon passing between the Earth and the Sun, she said but nobody in the village believes that. She has known the story since she childhood, and I'l have to concede that it did work again today.
I will go back to praying for rain.