So the century's longest solar eclipse happened near Patna. I was first assigned to go to Taregna but then plans changed. So I was to report from Patna. On Monday, I was at the market when the mosque announced that special eclipse prayers would be held at 6 a.m. and congregation members are urged to come and participate. That was a story there. So I asked them and they said I could visit the Fakirbara Masjid in the morning. I went, and as I waited for them to finish their prayers, eclipse happened and darkness descended. Of course I didn't look at the sun. We went to the Darbhanga Ghat after the mosque prayers and saw women and men crouching in water, praying incessantly. The demons had threatened the God, and mankind could save it through prayers. Exploring the religious side of the eclipse was fun.
An edited version appeared in the Indian Express on July 23, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
Patna, July 22, 2009
At the 200-year-old Fakirbara Masjid in Dariyapur, Imam Mohd.
Atiqullah raised his pitch to tell the congregation that the solar
eclipse was a manifestation of God’s anger, and a reminder that the
creation will end. So they must pray to pacify him, and ask for his
forgiveness. And the gathering of nearly 60 men prostrated, and bowed
their head Wednesday morning at around 6 a.m. as the eclipse plunged
them into daylight darkness for a few moments. As the solar swept
through the northeast towards Mongolia where it would fade out with
the sunset, superstition trailed it.
“Allah, please forgive us. Remove your fear. Grace us with your love
again,” Atiqullah said, as part of the khutba, the sermon.
Such prayers weren’t unusual on the day the heavens and earth entered
into a rare alignment and even in Taregna, a subdivisional town that
NASA proclaimed as the best place to view total solar eclipse, the
lone mosque performed Kusoof or the eclipse prayer. When the moon came
in between the sun and the earth at 6:21 a.m., throwing a shadow on
the earth, the men rubbed their heads against the cold stone floor of
the mosque in the little village 30 kilometers off Patna. Outside,
thousands of tourists, the scientists, and others donned on the
protective eyeglasses and prepared to watch the century's longest
eclipse in the tiny subdivision. But the little village disappointed.
Cloudy skies obscured the view and thousands were left wanting more for their money.
***
In the distance, a light bulb flickered, and rain drops diluted the
rest of the sermon as the moon cast its shadow on earth, eclipsing the
sun, chewing away at the edges of the golden sphere. Suddenly, the
darkness descended. Such total eclipses are a rare phenomenon because
these require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and earth to line up
in alignment so the sun can be covered by the moon. On the streets,
children wore cheap plastic sunglasses they sold for Rs. 20 a piece on
eve of the eclipse, and dared to look at the sun, warding off mothers’
concerns that the rays from the eclipse could turn them blind.
“It is like a snake trying to bite into the sun,” one child shouted.
But the faithful, bent in prayer, didn’t bother to look at the
nature’s spectacle outside the mosque doors.
“They have all turned it into a tamasha, a drama. This is a moment of
God’s anger. We should not look at him directly. That’s why Prophet
Mohamed said that during eclipse men must gather in congregations in a
mosque and turn to prayers,” Atiqullah said. “Taregna has turned into
a show. Eclipse is serious.”
At the sprawling ghats on the banks of the Ganges, women crouched in
water with folded hands, looking at the sun directly. They had come to
save their god, who the demons threatened.
So they would remain submerged in the brownish waters of the holy
river, chanting mantras till the catastrophe was over, till the ruler
of the night conceded defeat over the ruler of the day, they said.
Mithila Devi had travelled all the way from Darbhanga to perform the
pujas at the ghats during solar eclipse. She owed it to the gods.
At 5 a.m., when she walked down the steps at the ghats at Darbhanga
House, the site of the famous Kali temple, light filtered through the
clouds. Then there was rain. But all of that didn’t deter her. There
were other women too. They sat down on the steps, took out the diyas,
and prepared for the moment of darkness. In their innocence, they
believed their chanting would save the god from peril.
“We are not scared. Nothing will happen. If our god is in trouble, it
is to us to save him,” Devi, 50, said. “Can you see now that the
eclipse is slowly getting over? It’s because we prayed.”
In the morning, the ghats were full just like the mosques across the
city that announced there would be Kusoof, or the special prayers with
two rakats, cycles of prayer. Each rakat of the eclipse prayer has two
bowings and two prostrations.
During the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, the day his son Ibrahim
died, there was a solar eclipse. People then said the sun eclipsed
because of the death. But the Prophet said it wasn’t so and that the
sun and moon were two signs of Allah and when they eclipse; the
followers must invoke God and pray till the eclipse is over.
It is also a reminder of the Day of Judgment, Atiqullah said.
On Feb. 6, 1980, he had summoned a similar congregation at a mosque in
the afternoon. It was his first Kusoof.
“At around 3 p.m., there was darkness similar to today. It was total
solar eclipse then,” Atiqullah said. “Bad things are spreading in the
world. God is angry.”
Across from him, Hosamudin nodded. When the Delhi High Court had
legalized homosexuality earlier this month, he was pretty sure the
eclipse was just a way of Allah showing he wasn’t happy with the
court’s decision.
“That’s one of the reasons. There’s others like corruption,” he said.
“I was there in 1980 too and had prayed my share. The eclipse is
Allah’s way of creating gear.”
***
At the ghats, the women and a few men would remain in water until the
dark shadow on the sun cleared away. On top of the steps, priest
performed yajnas during the grahan. Scented smoke, one mixed with ghee
and dried flowers, went up in the air.
Anita Pandey stood on the banks, her feet in water. She had walked to
the ghats in fear. If anything went wrong, she would be born into the
lowest caste in her next birth, she said.
“I threw away last night’s food. They say until the graham is over, we
are impure,” she said. “Only when the Sun God feels better, we can eat
a morsel. Every once in a while the demons scare the God who goes into
hiding. This was the longest in 135 years. But it will be over.”
Pandey had watched the shadows on the sun with her naked eyes.
While Muslims and Hindus did what the religious texts prescribed to
mitigate the effects of the eclipse, churches were quiet. Though the
Bible mentions a time, just before the return of Jesus, when something
that sounds like a much longer solar eclipse can descend upon earth.
Father Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese,
said since there was no mention of an eclipse in the Bible nor did
Jesus made any reference to it, most Christians didn't consider it as
a bad or a good omen.
"No, it doesn't mean much to us," he said.
But in the mosques across the cities that fell on the path of the
eclipe, the men huddled, listening to the sermons. The Muslim women
prayed inside their homes. And though the television sets broadcast
the whole spectacle, but they found no takers in the faithful.
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