An ordinary Monday evening.

After having seen the last of my patients, I scurried to the orange Spresso waiting dutifully in the front yard to take me back home. The drive home barely takes three minutes. I am lucky to finally stay so close to my workplace.

As I reach the gate of our apartment and roll down the windows and wait for Man Bahadur, the watchman, to unlock the gates, something catches my eye.

Up in the twilight sky, beside a thin crescent moon, a bright light shone.

Too bright to be a star.

So bright that I thought it was a street light, high up somewhere, not so far away.

The gates opened. I reverse-manoeuvred the vehicle into its designated parking spot. Returning to the street, I looked up—in wonder.

How strange this was.

I had never seen a star so close to the Moon. And the light from this star looked yellower and warmer than anything I had ever seen before.

I stood gazing, taking it in.

This strange mystery.

Man Bahadur was puzzled to see me standing in the street, staring skywards.

“Can you see that star next to the moon?” I asked him, pointing towards the velveteen heavens.

He looked up thoughtfully and nodded.

For a few minutes, we just stood there, staring at the late evening sky—curious, perplexed and perhaps a little awed.

I then carried on with my day.

Even though I had homework to help with, a kale smoothie to prepare and clothes to dry out, the wonders of the cosmos had literally stopped me in my tracks.

The next morning, I came across a WhatsApp status of someone who had taken a photograph of the same sight. On further internet research, I discovered that what I had witnessed was a Moon–Venus conjunction: the Moon and Venus appearing remarkably close together in our sky.

The bright “star” I had seen was, in fact, Venus—our incredibly bright planetary neighbour.

It feels like a tender gift.

A brief glimpse into the infinite mysteries of our universe.

A Sacred prayer.