“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”
Stephen Hawking
As monsoon comes to an end – which it shows no signs of doing right now – the clouds usually lighten and turn wispy. I am happy to say that for the last decade or more, that I have been been in Goa with my parents, I consider myself lucky for having gazed at the most gorgeous skies.
Living in a large city like Delhi, where I have spent most of my life, one tends to forget the presence and importance of skies. For most of the year it is too hot to gaze upwards, and there is not much of a monsoon to speak of. Winter is perhaps the only time when one actually feels the presence of skies and the warmth of the sun. The day usually begins with thick fog which takes hours to slowly thin and make way for the soft glowing warmth of the sun to filter through. By then, it is almost noon and you have only a few hours of light and warmth in which to bask, before it steals away into the inky and foggy evening. You make your way home from work, in the light of streetlamps softly glowing like a thousand winter suns.
Then again, where do you get to see great skyscapes in big cities? With all the urbanisation and construction that has taken place over the years, the view from your flat’s balcony is most likely to be of another building and another and another. The sky is pierced with thousands of towering apartments and you scarcely see a thin sliver of it. Delhi, in particular, has grown so polluted over the years that it is impossible to breathe, enveloped as it is, in a constant haze of grey.
Perhaps that is why I cherish the skyscapes in Goa even more and why it is like a breath of fresh air. Thanks to the mining industry (which has been curbed, thankfully) and increasing construction, pollution here too has grown over the years. Besides, where we live – close to Vasco da Gama – is where shiploads of imported coal arrive and because there is scant regard for any rules, coal dust pollution is rampant.
Still, the thrill of seeing beautiful skies is ever present with the dawning of every new day. Here are a few that I managed to capture on my mobile and tablet cameras through the past year, and some. You can see how the skies take on the colours of the seasons and the time of day, through winter-springtime and the monsoon. Unfortunately, there is a squash court being constructed in front of our flat and the balcony views are fast vanishing. Good thing, I managed to save some, to remember and to share.
It’s soon going to be a year for my blog. What better way to end the year, than with skyscapes of Goa!
Oh, and the last photograph in the slide-show was taken just this morning!
Peripatetic Perch 