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REVELATIONS

 REVELATIONS

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

06/VII/2022

 

            Our city is called the ‘Sun City’ for obvious reasons. It is 355 days of bright sunshine. Ten odd days can be ‘Mafi-Galti’. The desert sun is severe & deadly. Once you get used to it and know how to stay safe, nothing like it. We are now well acclimatised.

 

            Slowly, solar power is making inroads everywhere. Many companies have set up solar panels for miles in the vacant desert spaces. Even wind power is gaining steam. Huge wind turbine generator blades keep fanning the wilderness.

           

            We had open garages in our colony with no roof on top. Our house was vacant as I was working elsewhere. People with extra cars started parking theirs in our space. It was getting intolerable due to the damage they were causing because of misjudgments while parking, thus knocking off corners of the entrance pillars.

 

            To ward off this nuisance, our neighbours installed a solar light at the ledge of their entrance. Whole day it would get charged due to sunlight and keep illuminating the garage all night. People who used to sneak in their vehicles now started avoiding parking in their space. But our garage space was still being used even after repeated requests which fell on dead years.

 

            One day we decided to cover garage space too. The idea was to fix a drop gate which was lockable. The unauthorised parking issue would get resolved automatically.

 

            Neighbour’s solar lamp stayed in its place but it was useless now. After dusk it would light up for about ten minutes and then ‘sleep in peace’. This we observed, when we recently moved into our house. It served no purpose as the sunlight which used to charge it had got blocked after the garage got covered.

 

            The lamp was still illuminating for a short while, even under cover was the mystery. How was it getting charged? I scratched my head a little and then forgot about it.

 

            This morning as I was watering the plants. I was holding the hose pipe high, to water the hanging plants in the garage. I saw the legs of a lady who was taking a morning walt, criss-crossing in a reflection above that solar light. I glanced at the lady and then the reflection and then thought about the phenomenon. The mystery of charging the solar lamp unfolded.

 

            It had rained heavily the previous night and there was water standing by in the front rain water drain. Water collects for a while and then gets drained out or evaporates during the day. Water also collects when it overflows from watering the pots. Birds hop across to quench their thirst in this drain.

 

            The sun had risen behind the lane opposite ours at such an angle that sunlight was reflecting from this water exactly to the place where the solar lamp was fixed. In that reflection the legs of the walker got caught. That’s how for that little time that solar lamp would store energy to light up the garage for about ten minutes in the evening.

 

Another revelation put to rest. Isn’t it? I wonder!!!!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© NOEL ELLIS

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