eNarada, Bengaluru, Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Temples across Bengaluru were shut by evening on Monday and were reopened only on Tuesday. If you are wondering as to why were these temples closed; then blame it on the lunar eclipse.
The partial eclipse of the moon occurred on August 7. The eclipse began from 10.52 PM and continued up to 12.49 AM (August 8). This time, only a small fraction of the moon came under the earth’s shadow at maximum eclipse. This partial eclipse was visible across India and hence the temples were shut. Though the lunar eclipse was only for a period of 1 hour and 57 minutes, the temples were closed early as the staff had to clean up the entire premises before reopening it.
In fact, in a few of the temples which were located on the road side in the city were draped completely with clothes. Narasimhamurthy , a resident of Rajajinagar said, “I generally park my bike on the road and try to have a glimpse of the deity from the road itself. However, on Monday, the deities in the temples were completely draped in cloth due to lunar eclipse.”
In fact, lunar eclipse saw a huge number of people heading to Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium where elaborate arrangements were made to view the eclipse.
On the other hand, many people preferred to reach home early and have food as it is believed to be a taboo to eat anything during the eclipse period.
As the vehicular movements reduced ,Bengaluru roads were almost empty. BS Basavaraju, a BWSSB contractor who had been to attend a musical fest at Ravindra Kalakshetra said, “I reached corporation circle from Vijayanagar in less than 25 minutes on Monday evening. Usually, it would take more than an hour but due to lunar eclipse, a majority of the city roads were empty and was an easy way to travel.”
