As I went floating along in the universe last night ...

I met Orionids, star dust from comet Halley. At 6800 ft above sea level atop one of Kitt Peak's observatories, I gazed at the stary sky waiting to catch Orionids in their fleeting flights across earth's atmosphere.Robert, our star-guide for the night helped us spot the Orion constellation in the night sky through the naked eye. Orion's belt was to be the radiant point for the Orionids shower tonight. He showed us how to spot the Pole star across from Cassiopeia, the Andromeda galaxy and of course our very own Milky Way. He also positioned the 20m telescope for us to view Orion's beautiful nebula following its belt. Robert was a good story teller. He told a fascinating story about how this supernovae in the Tauras constellation reached its end of life and all that remains of it now is the Crab nebula with a mirthful pulsar (neutron star) spinning at its heart about 30 times every second. He then positoned the telescope for us to view the nebula. There was something very elegiac about that sight ... as Khuswant Singh would say of Delhi .. "ruins proclaim the past splendour of an ancient monument". Our mighty Sun would meet the same fate many billions of years from now telling tales in its ruins of the magnifient yonder years of its brilliant youth.Robert showed us many a beautiful objects in the sky, the sparkling sea of a globular cluster, yellow twin stars, the bright and twinkling Sirius ...Amidst listening to Robert's stories and gazing at the universe through the eye-piece, sometime in between a fragment of meteor flashed boldly in the night sky,left a trace of its trail in the 10 seconds memory of the sky. 'We too are stardust' and I thought to myself .. there goes a part of me shining brilliantly with life just in that moment and then .. gone, leaving the 10second memory of my foot steps behind.So long, Orionids until next year.