Some musings on 40th anniversary of the moon landing.
MY WATER WORKS UNCLE
When I was a small child, an uncle of mine used to tell me that he was going to go for a space walk. That was in the early seventies and I did not quite believe him. He used to work in the water works of Agra, and was a very practical man.
But how can you go for a space ride? I asked him.
He told me that just like people go for aeroplane rides, one day they will go for space rides. When that day comes, I will be a space tourist.
He did not live to see that day. But whenever I see news of space tourists, I remember this teacher-visionary uncle of mine. Then I wonder, even though what he said was right, could he, an ordinary man pay for that costly ride?
As I grew a bit older, (and more argumentative) I used to ask him what good it was to go to the moon when there was no safe drinking water for many. Maybe your water-works job has it’s own significance, which you do not realize, day dreaming about going to the moon. He would reply by a silent smile.
I would try to provoke him further by asking how India is claiming to be a ‘big-power’ while millions go without safe water and proper food. The water-works uncle would reply with a silent smile.
In these small conversations, we covered some thorny issues of the relation and relevance of these costly missions to the common man. The balance between science and adventure and all the politics and money involved.
BE MY COLLINS
Michael Collins had been allotted the role of command module pilot in the Apollo series.
When one talks about space, millions will know the name of Yuri Gagarin or Neil Armstrong. Few would know the second man on the moon-Buzz Aldrin, and even fewer would know the third man involved in the mission-Michael Collins.
The support of Collins in the command module was crucial to the mission and cannot be overstated.
The ‘water-works uncle’ was like Collins in many ways. A guide, mentor, and someone who would tease one’s imagination to broaden one’s horizon, he supported many of our family in different ways. Though not physically with us, he still guides us spiritually.
WHICH IS FARTHER?
In his book “Carrying the Fire” Michael Collins reflects
To compare the sensation with something terrestrial, perhaps being alone in a skiff in the middle of the Pacific ocean on a pitch black night would most nearly approximate my situation. In a skiff, one would see bright stars above and black sea below. In each case, time and distance are extremely important factors. In terms of distance, I am much more remote, but in terms of time, lunar orbit is much closer to civilized conversation than is the mid-Pacific. Although I may be a quarter of a million miles away, I am cut off from human voices for only forty-eight minutes out of each two hours, while the man in the skiff-grazing the very surface of the planet-is not so privileged, or burdened. Of the two quantities, time and distance, time tends to be a much more personal one, so that I feel simultaneously closer to, and farther way from Houston than I would if I were on some remote spot on earth which would deny me conversation with other humans for months on end.
FIND ONE’S MOON
As I was discussing some nuances and reflections, one of my old friends who always helps keep me less dreamy, asked- Where is your mind wandering?
The moon expedition was a great scientific and logistical exercise. This was another thing which my humble ‘water-works’ uncle was very good at. Planning, keeping inventories and notes. The farthest he went out physically was to the Himalayas. But the base he set for me and many of our family, the vision of even being able to go to outer space (which I did not believe then) and the note books and accounts he would keep taught us some steps of imagination, planning and logistics which are essential to any journey.
So I told my friend-No I am not dreaming of going to the moon.
But wherever I have reached, is because of one dreamy uncle of mine, who told-Everyone has to find his own moon.
