The Best Rainbows Ever!

Lets talk about the time I saw two rainbows together and one of them was round.

Rainbows are, to put it in one word, fascinating. A break from the usual monotony of blue in the day and dark in the night, a whole spectrum of 7 colours  to observe, these days they’ve become a rather rare phenomenon. I have,in my life seen a total of 7 rainbows, three slightly visible ones,2 huge ones over the city and 2 together in the midst of snow capped hills and brown mountains,next to the sparkling blue waters of a lake and one of them was round. It is definitely the best one I’ve ever seen and currently also the most recent.

In the summer of last year, my family and I went to Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, India for a trip. I saw many wondrous and exotic things there but today, I limit myself to the coloured wonders, the two rainbows. We went to Pengong Lake, the world’s highest saltwater lake situated at 14,000 ft. above the mean sea level and were going to spend the night there, at a camp. We went through an absolutely breathtaking road, covered and surrounded almost wholly with and by snow. Eventually, from the distance we saw Pengong Lake,its blue waters glittering in between the mountains, a jewel in the cold desert.

The road to heaven.

The view from the road at 17,000 ft. above mean sea level.

The first glimpse of the lake.

 

Believed to be what remains of the Tethys sea today, this beautiful blue saltwater lake was extremely enchanting, a marvel for the human race, who’ve come so far and yet are nullifying their effects by a tenfold. We had fun on the lakeside, enjoyed the view and admired the water birds who made crow like sounds(I haven’t been able to find their names out) and retired to the camp. The next morning, we went to the lakeside again and saw, to our wonder, two rainbows in the sky. One was fainter and the other, around the sun, like a ring. It was absolutely picturesque. The water too, was a different shade of blue that it was last evening. In that moment, I knew that if heaven existed, it had to be right here, right now in this place that fills me up with so much peace and happiness in amounts I thought I wasn’t capable of feeling.

The unnamed water birds.

 

I tried to capture the halo that is, the round rainbow (As I later found it is called) but couldn’t, due to the fact that I didn’t have the appropriate camera lenses. I read up on halos, much afterward and this is what they’re defined to be:”A halo, also known as a nimbus, ice bow or gloriole is an optical phenomenon produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere, resulting in a wide variety of coloured or white rings, arcs or spots in the sky. Many halos are near the sun or moon but others can even occur elsewhere in the sky.”

The fainter rainbow in the sky.

One of my numerous attempts to capture the halo, in bits and pieces if I had to ,to take it back with me.

Another attempt.

The best possible capture, which doesn’t even begin to show the actual beauty of the halo.

I feel glad, blessed and so lucky to have been able to behold this wonder of nature, this specimen of, or testament to its beauty, this captivating,alluring view. I would if given a chance, in a heartbeat go right back to Pengong Lake, the land of beauty and grace, where the gods descend and nature is having a celebration of life itself.