The Quest for the Northern Lights

Now it was time to do what we had primarily come to Norway for, The Northern Lights. I’m sure many of you’ll are not aware of this phenomenon. Also known as the Auroras, this nature’s weirdness at its very best. Due to some ‘chemical locha’ in the sky at the north pole (it actually is due to severe magnetic force up there), there is a chemical reaction which causes results in the sky turning green or in some cases red. They say it seems like the sky is emitting light and when the activity is severe, the entire sky turns green/red and forms wonderful formations, making it an amazing sight. The catch is, you need thousands of things to be perfect and a huge huge slice of luck if you want to see them.

Firstly, the activity starts from October and a clear sky is required. If there are even 40% clouds in the sky, they block the view of the Auroras. On top of that, the temperature needs to be around 0 degrees Celsius and the wind speed should also be good. Then, there should be no lights around you as the lights beside you, will cause the lights up there to go faint. Sometimes, even with all these things going for you, it sometimes still is not seen.

Good things do come at a Price!!!

So, we had checked the forecasts and there were clear skies forecasted for 26^th October. All the other days, there were clouds forecasted, so this was our only chance. So, we set out from Flam for a 30 hour journey up top to the North of Norway. After some awesome sights, late night chats, music on phone and a lot of sleeping, we reached Bodo, a city in the northen part of Norway. We were in for a huge shock out there. The temperature was a freaking 15 degrees Celcius!!! In Mumbai, that would send a chill down the spine of most of the people, but for the northern part of Norway, it was a complete one-off. They said the temperature was less than 5 degrees yesterday and it was simply extraordinary for the temperature to be so high. We could not help but curse of luck. At this temperature, there was no chance of us seeing the Northern Lights. 

The tourist office was closed and we were asking random people on the street as to how and where could we see the Northern Lights. It was such a regular thing for them. They were all like, “We never think so much, we just see them when they come. ” finally, a person understood our desperation and helped us. He searched places nearby Bodo, where the forecast was favourable for the Northern Lights. The places where there was no cloud cover were very warm (yes, 10 degrees was warm that day, never thought such a day would arrive) and the places that were cooler had very high cloud cover. Finally, he found a place, it seemed to be the best option as the sky was clear and the temperature was much lower. Only problem, it was 60 kms away from there. What do we do now? Simple, we rent a car!!!

Isn't she stunning???

 Car rental is a very popular thing here and only for this purpose, I had specially got an International Driving Permit from home. Now, it was time to use it. We rented a Peugeot with a Navigator and the four of us, left for what was our one and only shot at seeing something for which we had travelled more than 50 hours for.

As I opened the door, I was surprised to see no steering, how the hell am I supposed to drive, that when I saw the steering, just lying there, on the LEFT hand side of the car. That is when I knew, this was going to be One Adventurous ride. It took me 5 minutes to get settled, getting used to changing gears with my right hand. Everything was just the mirror image, except the A-B-C (Thankfully J )

Once settled, it was a joy ride. Driving is one of my hobby and the roads, the car, the anticipation, the atmosphere, the challenge made it all even more thrilling. We reached the place after an hour and tried to get away from the lights. After an hour of ‘bhatakna’ here and there, we finally managed a good spot, just besides the road, on the extension. There was hardly any light there and the temperature sensor on our car, something which we had seen more than thousand times during the past hour, was showing a hopeful 6 Degrees. I don’t know why, but I just felt this is the spot.

It was 11 in the night and we were God knows which place, in complete darkness, with no man or woman other than us. All of us were just looking up in the sky, hoping to see something, looking in every direction for that ray of green rope, for that miracle, for our ultimate goal. We had all prayed a lot that night. I remember praying too, praying to God to just let us see what we had come so far for. Half an hour went by and we were starting to think if we did the right thing stopping here. Should we have gone further? Would the temperature have been lesser ahead? What about the cloud cover up there? As these millions questions ran through out head, Varnika and I just shouted at the same time. “UDHAR DEKHO!!!!!, our prayers had been answered.

Towards our far left, we could see Green Lights emerge behind the mountain. It was very faint but was slowly and steadily becoming more prominent. VROOOOOOOM!!!!, a car just went by flashing its head lights brightly, and the sky became black again, damn that driver, he surely had some sadistic sense of timing. As the car left, we again waited, our eyes again searching for the green ray of magic. This time, we were much surer as we knew it was a question of when and not if. The green light formed again slowly from the left. Wait a minute, it was there on the right too, said Padosi. Yes, slowly the lights at the two extremes started moving towards each other. It seemed like the arrows of Karana and Arjuna were approaching each other. Slowly, the black patch in between was beginning to illuminate. In 5 minutes, the entire patch was green, it was faint, but still magical. I cannot describe the feeling. Time had stopped, we were all in awe and hugged each other in joy as if we had just won the world cup. Yes, the dream had come true. We had finally seen them. What Bliss!!!! And as the clock struck 12, we wished each other Happy Diwali one last time. Yes, it was Diwali night. What a unique sense of timing God has. Northern Lights on Diwali night, God had just burst a cracker, and what a cracker of a cracker it was.

A Very very Faint capture of the Northern Lights; they were much more prominent to the naked eye

This truly was one of the most memorable Diwali ever, and by far the most different. We spent most of Diwali, the festival of lights, hunting for darkness. In the festival of awesome food, bread, butter and chips was our dinner. In the festival of togetherness, we were disconnected from our families, loved ones and the world, without any phone connectivity or internet connection. It was some Diwali J   

The show went on till late night. God was showing off now. The lights were playing games and forming wonderful formations. Sometimes, they felt like 10 to 12 spot lights coming from the sky, sometimes they all felt like a fountain of green light. And just when we thought we had seen it all, a green coloured light managed to breakaway from the sky and came towards us. It moved fast, zig-zag and it moved with a tail and whizzed by just over our heads. Yes, it was a falling star. Everybody closed their eyes to wish for something, I was asked to wish for something too. I closed my eyes, looked up in the sky and from the deepest corner of my heart I spoke the first thing that came to my mind; “Thank You”. 

We stayed there to watch the show for another hour or so and then moved to other places to see them from different angles. But, the cloud cover had increased, as predicted and it was becoming fainter and could not be seem after a point of time. The car was our hostel for the night, and one by one, we all closed our eyes, with the sight of the green lit sky firmly in our sights.

I woke up to my alarm at 6: 30 am as it was time to go for a drive. Our train back down was at 12 in the afternoon and we had 5 hours to go on a drive, and that is exactly what we did. We chose to drive by the coastline, and it was great fun. Empty roads, brilliant car, coast side, awesome mausam (Copyrighted by a friend back in XL), what more does a driver need. The best part about road trips is you can stop wherever you like. We stopped to see some Reindeers, stopped at whatever sights we liked to click snaps and took deviations into unknown narrow lanes, just to get right besides the coast. While trying such random places, we unearthed a gem of a place. I don’t know how to describe it but it was just an amazing sight. There were mountains in the back, with the river flowing, and we were just besides the river, on some superbly textured rocks. I don’t know who started it, but we all felt so liberated at that place, that we decided to symbolize it. I think the picture below signifies what I mean and how we felt then and there J

The Jump of 'Liberty'

We had overshot and needed to get back fast in order to catch our train. So, I stepped on the accelerator and started my race against time. I won’t say the speed I went at, that would give my father some serious tension, but it was the fastest I have driven ever. After 60 minutes of relentless driving, we were back in Bodo, 30 minutes before time. But that is when, something completely unexpected happened. A police car came right in front and asked me to come out. They were two of them and asked me about where had we gone yesterday night. I told them about the Northern Lights. They told me that they had got complaints from many Norwegians that our car was parked suspiciously and that some people were coming out of the window. It was actually the rest trying to enjoy the amazing breeze while I was driving. But, why the hell is that not allowed, I thought. Afterall, it was someone just trying to have some harmless fun. So, on this trip of many first, another first happened. My first alcohol test. I was asked to breathe out into a pipe. On the first occasion, my debut was showing, I did not breathe out strongly. That made them even more suspicious and they asked me do it again, in a stern voice. This time, I threw the kitchen sink and gave it may bloody all. The detector went green as a zero flashed on the screen. For the first time after my IIT mock tests, a zero felt so good J. Thank God, I don’t drink because the brandy bottle was out the night in order to warm my friends who were feeling cold. 

What a Ride!!!

Once I passed the test, the tone suddenly changed. They smiled and asked me if we could manage to see the lights. After a few routine questions and license checks, they let us go free; warning not to come out of the car next time. They said, “Once is okay; but the next time it happens, you are never driving anything again in Norway”.  Heaving a huge sigh of relief, we rushed to drop the car and then to the train station, just in time to catch our train back down.

As we sat in the train, the look on our faces said it all, we were just a drink away from jail, exodus from Norway, suspension from our schools in Europe, rustication from XLRI, and much much more. As I started to rewind the last amazing 24 hours in my mind and all exhilarating experiences and escapades I said to myself once again, “Thank God I don’t drink “ J. Norway was one of the best ‘trip’ I’ve ever been on.