Cosmic view - Lovey-dovey on the path of totality

Even as scientists tech map the skies and re lease clinical pulse-bulletins, giving us details of the solar eclipse's trajectory as it journeys across America for the first time in 99 long years, the romantics have a different story to tell. The love-struck have eyes only for the prolonged dalliance between the sun and the moon, the amorous duo that have fired the imagination of the sensuous for thousands of years.

It's a slow but suggestive dance of the celestials, as the sun and moon sashay across and yonder, flirting outrageously , flashing that huge diamond ring at the very begin ning of their courtship, and once again, brandishing it tantalizingly at the very end, signifying the culmination of a cosmic yet intimate coitus.

The Navbharat Times once reported on an eclipse thus: "Aftab Mehtab ka maha sambog" -referring to that heavenly love affair between the sun and the moon, and its grand finale. The sun-struck moon, so to speak, never detracts from its focus, just as a lover pining for his love goes all out in pursuit of mutual fulfillment, even if it means making a public display of it.

In the age of social media and tech-enabled instant messages, has love gone out of our lives? Have we become too matter-of-fact and ungracious, looking only for instant gratification, with absolutely no time, inclination or patience for a long drawn-out courtship?

Well, people may not have the time, inclination or patience for a slow dance, but it seems romance is still alive and kicking, just about, even if in somewhat anemic versions.There are reports of couples planning their wedding to coincide with the solar eclipse, and others who are vowing to exchange diamond rings at the very moment when Surya and Chandra flash theirs.

So good luck to them, and Hallelujah to those of us in who the fire of romance continues to burn bright, much like the sun and moon will, for sure, once they go their separate ways, only to live out their lonely days in erotic anticipation of their next close encounter.