The invisible light

If someone should show you their selfie with the northern lights, ask them straight away if they actually saw it. This is a question that challenges our fundamental understanding of what it means to see. Any honest person worth their salt would think twice before responding to this question.

Allow me to narrate a side story. You’ll soon see the connection.

Back in 2017, we had a class reunion at Corbett National Park in Kumaon, the foothills of the Himalayas. We had organised a safari in the forest starting 5 am. Except for a handful of those who valued their sleep over tiger sighting, most of us braved the cold morning and boarded the four by fours organised for us. All the vehicles took different routes into the forest so as not too generate too much noise and scare away the animals. We spent hours trawling the forest, but saw nothing – no tiger, no elephant, not even a wild boar. We did see a couple of stray dogs but they were hardly wild. The animals had decided to boycott us and we came back tired, hungry and feeling rather foolish. I noticed a classmate walking around with a swagger and a smile while the rest of us moped about, shoulders slumped.

I asked my smiling friend,

“Looks like you saw a tiger?”

“No. But I saw a man who saw a tiger,” he replied. I couldn’t help a sarcastic jibe and asked him if he got a photo of the man.

“Oh! No. I forgot to do that,” he said, a rueful expression darkening his naïve, innocent face.

On a similar vein, if you ask me whether I have seen the northern lights, I will look at you shifty-eyed, squirm in my seat and reply,

“Well, I have a camera that saw it.”

So here is the rub. A couple of years ago in the month of February, my wife and I visited Tromsø at the northern tip of Norway. We braved the cold, broke our bank, and dressed like mummies. Every inch of skin was protected from the cold howling wind by several layers of thermals and woollens. We travelled in a small van with some others, our flasks brimming with hot cocoa, and hearts with hope. The tour guide regaled us with warm Scandinavian stories and reassured us that the northern lights, when they do appear in the sky would be a life changing experience for us. It did happen yesterday, he assured us, and it happens almost all nights. So long as it doesn’t rain or snow. Then he said something that intrigued me. Looking up at the sky through the windscreen, he said,

“There’s a Scandinavian saying – All cats look grey at night.”

I didn’t understand the relevance then but I was soon to find out.

The night was clear, stars canopied the sky, and the van was toasty. The street lights gradually disappeared as we sped out of town into the eery darkness of the countryside. Finally we stopped. Except for the black tarmac of the road everything else was white. There was no moon, just starlight reflecting off the snow. And there was snow everywhere, fresh snow like icing on a cake made out of frozen snow.

We were asked not to use any flashlights or use the flash on our cameras because our eyes had to get used to the low light. So we trudged along the snow fields, further and further away from the road until we reached a dip in the valley where we waited … and waited … multiple mittens and socks and boots and balaclavas kept us fairly warm for a while but the cold eventually prevailed. We wriggled our toes and fingers to make sure they were still attached. Like astronauts on the moon we walked about aimlessly, necks craned upwards and talking in hushed whispers until someone told us we don’t have to whisper!

Then,

“There it is,” the guide pointed heavenward at a large bright white streak across the sky.

I could detect a forced ring of enthusiasm in his voice. The tourists, though inwardly disappointed, joined in,

“Wow! How lovely!” They echoed the guide’s half-hearted cheer.

I’m someone who wants value for money. I didn’t travel to the North Pole to see a glorified cloud. I wanted to see the full spectrum or at least some of it.

“But I only see white,” I complained. I had said what everyone else was too polite to say.

“Yes, yes,” the guide said. “As we grow older, we don’t see colours too well.”

So it was my fault! I looked around. There were a couple of little mummies in our group. Turning my head in their general direction, I asked,

“Can anyone see any colour?”

All the mummies shook their head. The guide was defeated. He then came up with his next trick. Erecting a tripod on the snow, he invited me to fix my camera and adjust it to a very slow shutter speed, a high ISO setting and a few other settings I never even knew existed. Then he asked my wife and me to pose with the northern whites, sorry lights, behind us and told us to stay still. We were already semi frozen, so it was not difficult to follow his instructions. He remote released the shutter and it took its time while we stood unflinching and unbreathing. He finally approached us with a broad smile combing icicles off his beard and returned my camera with a flourish.

“Have a look,” he said triumphantly.

And there it was, the Northern Lights in all its glory. A brilliant emerald green tinged with blues and yellows instead of the white streak. He repeated the exercise with all the tourists. We returned to our respective hotels clutching our cameras that have seen the northern lights.

(P.S. The next day we saw the northern lights with naked eyes. It was a very brief darshan.)