‘Hey look! A star!’

‘Over there! Another one!’

‘Another one over there! Oh, and another, and another!

‘Wow, I have never seen so many before.’

No matter how many times I hear this exact same conversation, it never fails to amuse me. In fact, almost every group of city kids says those exact words during their first night at our sleepy little town of Tapah. Coming all the way from homes in the city, these kids witness for the first time the raw beauty of Mother Nature in its purest form.

Little do the names Orion, Taurus, or even Scorpios mean anything to them, except maybe the zodiac column in the newspaper everyday. For many of these kids, this is the first time they hear the stories of the Heavenly Bodies; stories such as, how the mighty hunter Orion and the great bull Taurus are locked in an eternal hunt as he pursues it endlessly night after night. His faithful dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor follow him closely while they too hunt the rabbit Lupus. How the faeries of Pleiades try to entice the great hunter as they dance and sparkle just beyond his reach. And finally how the great hunter is killed by a scorpion sting; which is why Orion sets as Scorpios rises.

Living in the city now, I understand how so many people can live through life, night after night, without noticing the beauty of the stars. The sheer amount of light pollution in an average city is purely disgusting. With every form of light, ranging from street lights to flashing neon lights lighting up billboards blaring endlessly throughout the night. On an average night, the sky is not pitch black as it is in Tapah; but it’s a somewhat blackish colour, tinged with white; reflections of the endless amount of light pouring from the city. Not surprisingly, it’s not uncommon to look up and not see a single star in the sky at all, let alone full constellations.

I find this really tragic that so many people live their lives without realizing the beauty that lies just above them. Some of the best moments in my life have been just lying out in the open on a clear night, under a blanket of stars, waiting for pieces of heaven to fall. Do you know that there is an average of 3 shooting stars each hour? So it’s not uncommon to count 5-6 shooting stars on a clear night. However, this numbers are nothing compared to what is to be seen during annual meteor showers, where there are as many as 100 shooting starts each hour, all concentrated on a specific portion of the sky! This sight would be similar to letting out a jar full of fireflies into the dark night, but on a galactic scale.  

I sit by my window now as I write this, gazing upon the street that my room overlooks. I watch as one pedestrian after another walk pass; each of them wearing the same expressionless look on their face as they hurry by, each staring at the ground in front them as they walk pass, completely oblivious of what lies just above them. I come to this conclusion. ‘City people spend so much time looking at the ground, hoping to find loose change; that they miss out completely the treasures that lies just above them’.