I once witnessed a total eclipse of the sun. I can’t recall the year — just that I was young. And that I was home in India.

It was supposed to happen at midday. All of Kolkata was abuzz. We went and bought our eclipse-watching goggles and waited with the kind of anticipation that could rival a bride’s as she walks down the aisle.

But in India, solar eclipses are the stuff of superstition. Pregnant women stay indoors for fear of giving birth to a tainted baby. Temples close. Somehow, the sun’s light disappearing is cause for much concern.

And eerie it was. When there should have been skin-burning rays, darkness fell upon the congested city of millions. When there should have been bustling markets and overflowing buses, there was emptiness. Day became night. We ran to the rooftop of my grandfather’s house to catch a glimpse of the sun’s corona.

Miraculous, it was. The sun appeared like a crescent moon, a silvery sliver high in the sky.

I helped put together CNN’s story on the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century, first seen on Wednesday in eastern India. I wondered if my friends and family were out on rooftops, just like I had been, marveling at the celestial spectacle.

Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/22/solar.eclipse/index.html

Kevin left for a two-week road trip today. I woke up to an empty house. Made me think about how much space we are used to having in our American lives of comfort.

My mother’s family in Kolkata live humbly, even by Indian standards — in dilapidated rented homes, without running hot water or modern bathroom facilities. My mother’s brother’s family still occupies a once-grand and ancient, the same one in which my mother spent her childhood years. They were times she held onto in adulthood, especially after a massive stroke left her bound to a wheelchair.

The plaster is crumbling; during the monsoon, the rain intrudes. The rooms are tiny. It’s not uncommon for a family of five to inhabit a 400 square foot apartment. Think how it must be for the poor and their burgeoning populations in India’s vast bastis.

The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s and now stands at 2,349 square feet. That’s more than any other country in the world.

I am sipping my coffee and feeling alone in my Victorian space. And feeling guilty that I should have the privilege of feeling so.

My friend Robin came to visit me for a couple of days. She lives in San Diego and was on her way to the North Carolina mountains to spend time with family. I am so glad she decided to make a pit stop at my house.

Robin and I have known each other since the time we were fresh college graduates in Tallahassee. We were young and crazy then, both just divorced from husbands we probably should have never married. We made each other laugh. We called each other Dink, wore each other’s clothes and read each other’s thoughts.

I moved to Atlanta in 1990; Robin left for California shortly thereafter. And long stretches of time passed between our meetings. But still, when I see her, it feels as though time stood still. We own more wrinkles on our skin, more aches in our bodies. We are wiser for the wear, our vastly varied life experiences known and not known to each other.

But we still make each other laugh. And laugh.

In the dressing room of Squash Blossom in Decatur, we giggled our heads off so much that the sales lady remembered us from our last visit there together.

And in the evening, we dressed as two middle-class Indian women off for a sumptuous dinner at one of my favorite Indian restaurants: Bhojanic. I even stuck a bindi on Robin’s head.

She left a few minutes ago and my world seems so suddenly still. So quiet.

I am returning to my reality, thinking about how to rectify my lack of sleep before I head in for another overnight shift. The afternoon sun is playing hide and seek with the clouds, shards of light dancing on the hardwood floors of my front room.

But today, I feel a little richer for feeling tired.

Some people have asked me about the photograph of me with the camels.

It was taken in Ramadi, Iraq, in April 2007 by my friend and former colleague Louie Favorite. We had spent two months in northern Iraq before arriving in al-Anbar province. Ramadi, the provincial capital was known as the world’s most dangerous city. It had just started to turn around because several Sunni sheiks started the Anbar Salvation Council. Enough was enough, they said. They helped quell the violence. Sunni insurgents who once aimed at U.S. soldiers and indiscriminately killed Iraqi civilians decided to keep the peace.

Behind it all was a sheik named Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi. He was young for a tribal leader — only 37. Regal in his flowing muslin robes trimmed with gold, white headdress and a neatly groomed goatee.

We are tired of the bombings, beheadings and mortar attacks, al-Rishawi said. Tired of seeing the blood of our people flow like the Euphrates through our city.

His name was uttered in all circles. From the moment I landed in Ramadi, Iraq, I heard al-Rishawi mentioned in almost every conversation — by American soldiers and Marines, Iraqi army and police and the people on the street. One resident hailed him as the closest thing to God.

No other man, perhaps, was as vital to keeping the peace in Iraq’s lawless Anbar province. Certainly, the U.S. soldiers who worked with him in Ramadi knew it. And apparently, so did the terrorists he helped defeat.

Louie and I visited his compound with U.S. soldiers. We were embedded then with the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. We sipped hot syrupy tea and chatted with al-Rishawi’s brother about the future of Anbar, the future of strife-torn Iraq.

Months later, al-Rishawi was dead.

A bomb planted near his Ramadi home killed al-Rishawi just 10 days after President Bush lunched with him during a quick visit to Iraq and two days after Ramadi residents marked the first anniversary of the “Anbar Awakening.”

I can imagine his compound now — date palms swinging in the light breeze, the whir of air-conditioning units working overtime to keep the large house cool. I doubt the U.S. tank is still standing by the front gate. But I would venture to guess that the camels are still there, their faces locked in a permanent smile. Welcoming the outsider to a troubled land.

I relished a glass of Oregon pinot noir at 8 a.m.

Good wine is, well, good wine. Though, the sun, already blistering in the sky, took away from the elegance of it all. Sort of like drinking red wine from a plastic glass. Same stuff, not as tasty.

But what to do? Everyone needs to unwind after work, right?

A co-worker told me a funny tale about working the overnight shift. He likes to have a beer for breakfast but one day walked his school-age daughter to the bus stop with beer in hand.

At least I won’t have to worry about that one.

I started working overnights this week at CNN.

I haven’t worked into the wee hours of the morning in about 17 years. Then, I was more eager. Now, I am middle-aged.

I thought it might be like all those crazy hours in Iraq. But it’s different when bombs are falling around you.

I feel like a vampire now, spending my awake hours in darkness at home, in even more darkness in the cavernous newsroom.

I burst into tears after returning home one morning. Drinking red wine at 7 a.m. is not my idea of fun. Like a vampire’s last kill before entering slumber.

A friend of mine e-mailed me a few days ago saying: “Aren’t you glad now you work for CNN instead of the AJC?”
He was referring to the events unfolding in Iran, and of course, I was thrilled to be in the nerve center of the Cable News Network, where we’ve had a rather busy week.
It was amazing to be involved in the story because the story itself is so amazing.
Is this the first step towards change in Iran?
I can’t but help think so. In the very least, things can never be the same again, even if there is a crackdown. The world has seen the real desires and wishes of the Iranian people. More importantly, Iran’s regime has seen that it cannot squash the hopes and dreams of a vibrant population.
Keep watching, everyone.

Check out the AJC:

On a Muslim woman barred from entering a Douglasville courtroom.

www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/12/21/muslim_veil_court.html

And a story that explores a widow’s search for justice as Atlanta’s most notorious murder case comes to a close.

www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/12/14/Claudia_Barnes_widow.html

I have friends here in Georgia who crave acres and acres of land. They like living in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by lush grass and tall pines. They savor silence and go to sleep at night with the sound of crickets chirping outside the window. Most of all, they want to live where they don’t ever have to see other people.
I grew up in a mass of humanity known as Calcutta — the opposite of everything in the paragraph above. I feel uncomfortable when I can’t see walls of people, when I don’t hear the cacophony of street noise.
So I felt quite at home last week in Mexico City, otherwise known as D.F. or Distrito Federal where 21 million people fight for space every day.
“What? You went where for vacation?” was the reaction here in Atlanta. Aren’t there better places to go? Cancun? Baja California? Acapulco?
Not for me.
D.F. was perfect.
Spectacular weather. Delicious food. Great people watching. History. Art. So much art everywhere.
From Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera to the ruins of Tenochtitlan and Teotihuacan.
A tourbook for curious travelers suggested a visit to a handicrafts shop called Victor on Francisco Madero in the historic district. I walked in through a perfume store, up three flights of stairs in the back of a drab office building and into two small rooms where two elderly sisters greeted me with their treasures. Their artist father, Victor, had owned the shop until his death. Now the two women were happy to spend lazy days tending shop. I doubted that business was anywhere near brisk. But that wasn’t the point. So I acquired a pair of traditional silver earrings, lovingly gift-wrapped by the sisters. I could have lingered and asked question after question. But I wasn’t there as a journalist. I didn’t want to be intrusive.
So I left with my little box. And wondered about the lives of two women. How did they pass their evenings? How did they get to work? By subway? Or bus? Or did they drive an old family car? Had they ever married? Were their children, heirs to the store? Were they lonely or were they consumed by their beloved city? Would they enjoy living out in the Georgia countryside?
I walked back down the stairs and out onto the street. And quickly got lost in the crowd.