Life In The Dark

December 21^st, 2000, Bangalore, India.

        A scientist discovered an explosion in Andromeda galaxy; he tried to understand what had happened, later he found that a star exploded in that galaxy in a solar system, and the huge planets of that star started scattering away from that star at great speed in all directions. He carefully observed the explosion and came to understand that one of those huge planets has possibilities to enter our solar system. But during the calculation of the time taken for that planet to reach our earth, he got a heart attack and passed away. But this calculation was stopped after his death and no one knew about that giant planet arrival and no one knew when it is going to hit the earth.   

15^th April, 2019, Indian university of sciences, Hyderabad, 5:00pm

        Today is the last day of the final year students and every student is busy in bidding farewell to their friends with whom they spent three years. Every graduate of this university secured good placement in science field. Among them Nandan, a hardworking and kind student of that university also secured a job in ISRO (Indian Space Research Centre). He came out of the class after bidding farewell to all his friends and went to the canteen and sat at a table. He took a glance at his watch.

        The sun can be seen setting; there came Anjali, the girl friend of Nandan. She came and sat beside him. They both sat silent and did not utter a word. But deep inside their hearts, they are feeling disappointed that they are going to miss each other and they are unable to meet regularly from the next day. They are unable to believe that they are going to move apart. Anjali knew that Nandan must go for his job training to Bangalore for 4 years and he must take that training seriously for ISRO. So now they must not meet till then. After a while of silence, Anjali broke the silence.

Anjali: have you packed your luggage?

Hearing this Nandan hugged Anjali to his heart and said with rolling tears.

Nandan: I am going but get ready after 4 years at this place I am going to ask you our marriage proposal, which you should accept it.

Anjali: I will be waiting for you. But, at what time of that day?

Nandan: there you can see that we are moving apart today when the sun is setting, so we will meet that day when the sun is rising i.e. in morning.

Anjali: I’ll wait for that morning and on that day I am going to kiss you and hug tightly in that bright sunlight.

Later this young couple went apart. Nandan went to Bangalore for his 4 years training and taking the training seriously, Anjali became a chemistry lecturer in the same college they studied. They both though working seriously, they are waiting for that bright sunny morning for their meeting. In these 4 years, Nandan used to see the bright morning sunlight and used to think about their meeting and Anjali used to sit at their meeting spot every morning waiting for their meeting.

Days passed, months passed and years passed.

March 6^th, 2023, National remote sensing centre, Hyderabad, 6:30am

        Nandan woke up and sat on his bed. Sunrays are falling on him through the window beside the bed. He took an old note book which is lying on the table beside the bed. While going through the pages of that old book, we can find numbers striked with pen, he opened a page with unstriked numbers and striked number ‘37’ and rounded number ‘36’. The striked numbers are the waited days for their meeting and the rounded number is the days left for their meeting. He felt in himself that there are still 36 bright mornings for their meeting. He closed the book and had his bath and rode to his research lab.

       

 Nandan is a hard working person he discovered many exo planets, out of the solar system and received any awards for his work.

         

Today, while Nandan is busy in studying a star nearer to our solar system. Surya, a colleague of Nandan discovered that a star exploded 19 years ago in Andromeda galaxy, and he also found that the huge planets of that star are scattering in all directions. He discovered that one of those huge planets can have possibility to enter our solar system. He immediately tried to calculate that huge planets velocity and he tried to calculate the time taken by it to reach our solar system. He came to knew that it must be near to our solar system now. And it is still moving and if it enters into our solar system it can collapse with one of the 8 planets and revolves around our sun, entering into the suns gravitational field.

        

 While Surya is busy in drawing the trajectory path of that huge planet. His mobile fell down from his pocket. He left the calculation and lifted it up and continued the calculation. But mistakenly those calculated values went wrong and those values are misplaced when he was diverted due to the mobile fall. With those misplaced values he drew that planets trajectory and decided that the planet is not at all entering our solar system. Hearing this, all the scientists in that space lab felt happy. Nandan too felt happy after hearing this news. That night when all the scientists left, Nandan completed his work and decided to leave the lab to home.

        While he is about to leave, he entered into Scientist Surya’s cabin and took a glance at the coming huge planet’s trajectory and he felt somewhere deep in his heart to recalculate the calculations as he saw Surya when he was diverted to the mobile fall but he believes in Surya’s words and he too left the lab so, now no one knew the correct trajectory path of that giant planet.

Next day……

        Roshini, a 12 years girl woke up for her alarm at 6:00am. She stopped the alarm but she can feel that the sun not yet rose in the sky, so she slept again. After half an hour, again the alarm rang, she got up but she can feel again that the sun not yet rose in the sky. She quickly got up from her bed and opened the windows and saw the sky is still dark and there are no signs of the sun. The farmer is standing and glancing towards the sky waiting for sun, and the pilot of emirates in the air surprised for the absence of the sun yet in the sky. The prisoner, who is going to release today, is nervously waiting for the sun to rise. No one on the earth never ever expected that they are going to experience a day without the sun. Now we are going to see what happened and why the sun failed to rise in the sky this fine morning.      

        Nandan woke up and took out his old book in order to strike 36 and round up 35. But when he was about to strike 36 he can feel that the sun not yet rose in the sky. He paused a movement and took a glance at the sky through the window. And found the sky in dark. He started to get confused thinking how could this be possible. He checked the time it is 6:45am. He cannot understand what is going on. Suddenly his mind started to get striking of some words, “ I am going to ask you our marriage proposal”,” there you can see that we are moving apart today when the sun is setting, so we will meet that day when the sun is rising i.e. in morning”,” I’ll wait for that morning and on that day I am going to kiss you and hug tightly in that bright sunlight”. Remembering these words his mind started to get thoughts that”what am I going to do if the sun failed to rise that day too”. He started to become nervous and unsteady, he does not understand what is going on in the universe, looks like something is going to interrupt our meeting. He wanted to know what is going on and he wanted to bring light back on to this earth.

        Nandan switched on the television, and he can see every news channel discussing about the absence of the sun. In one channel some priests gathered and started giving speeches that

“Our ancestors said earlier that science is not the only thing that rules the universe, this universe is ruled by God and they also said that one day the sun will disappear in the sky when the sin of the humans increase on the earth, now finally they are real, let all the humans bear this and became a victim of that sin”.

        But Nandan knew that no God can change the universal truths, no mythology can stop the rotating earth, but something must have gone wrong.

         

Suddenly Nandan remembered the trajectory path drawn by Surya, Nandan ran out of his house and wore his helmet and rode on his bike to his lab in that dark. He went to the Surya’s planet trajectory sheet and tore it into pieces and he took a new sheet and again tried to calculate the velocity of the planet and the distance of the planet from earth and tried to draw the correct trajectory path of that planet.

       

 After the calculations and drawing the new trajectory, he shocked seeing the new trajectory. He went to the window of that lab, and opened it and started to stare at the sky in a shocking and nervous way.

        Coming to the new trajectory sheet and correct calculations, he found the exact location of that planet, he found that the present distance between that giant planet and the earth is similar to the distance between the moon and the earth. That giant planet entered our solar system and crossed the asteroid belt and finally stopped beside the earth. Yes, No god took away the sun, that giant planet is beside the earth and it is the thing obstructing the sun rays to fall on earth. 

        Let’s see how Nandan going to meet Anjali on a fine sunny day, and what he is going to do now, and let’s see how “THE LIFE IN THE DARK” would be.

                            (To be continued…….)

                                                                                Written by

                                                                                Sarath kumar