Chandrayaan

“So you are coming too, right? Done. Lets plan it out with the same precision details as the rocket launch vehicle would be”.

It was around the time when I was like 10 year old. We used to stay in a defense colony kind of environment having a heavy military/army influence as the area basically belonged to GoI’s (that’s Govt. of India for the uninitiated) one of the 36 Ordnance Factories spread across India engaged in arm’s manufacturing and production. The initial forming years of my life have just one memory and that is of this wonderful place called ‘OFC’. I think a separate blog entry on this place is warranted by the mere fact that I spent 18 precious years of my life in the wonderland which is so mysterious in its own way and yet has so much to relate to. But for now, back to the incident I was linking to at the time when I was a decade old. My elder bro was not keeping well around that time with his legs jammed in one position and my mom dad had to stay put late nights looking after him.

One such night, I remember my dad did not let us sleep till late midnight. The reason – there was an announcement on the AIR (that’s All India Radio for the generation born after 80s) that a heavenly/celestial body called Haley’s comet would be passing by our planet and that it would be visible with naked eyes in the dark skies that night. Now with my 10 years old brain, I really could not analyze this data much (remember no TV during that time to help depict such phenomenon with hi definition graphics) though I had a vague idea that someone called Haley would be brightly lit in the sky and everyone would say ‘tata’ to him. Sounds cute, isn’t it?

Cut to 2008 – I do think that the Haley’s comet event was indeed a big factor in shaping my impressionable mind into scientific mould and that I did develop a deep scientific inclination henceforth in my life though my exploration in this mystic world of science remains limited to reading a few good books on the subject like ‘A brief history of time’ and/or subscribing to ‘Astronomy’, ‘Universe’ kind of communities on Orkut. Though it may sound stupid but many a times I do think deeply and seriously on a few open ended questions science has thrown at us - if we still are alone in the Universe, how big is the Universe (think about it - we are a part of solar system which grouped in millions form a galaxy which in turn grouped together in millions are called ‘Clusters’ and which in turn grouped together in millions is called ‘Universe’!!) and many such questions which sometimes closely border on philosophy in terms of who is the Creator of the Universe and should we really treat science and philosophy/religion as two distinct branches of some higher discipline so to speak or should we wait for the ultimate ‘Theory of Everything’ to get materialized for piecing together all the Jigsaw puzzles thereby solving the mystery completely. I don’t think that would be possible in this birth, in fact I would rather not given a choice as they say there is bliss in ignorance and you can find ultimate bliss in ultimate ignorance!

So this time around I thought to myself – how about elevating my scientific curiosity to the next level? Instead of just pondering over such unexplainable ‘Universal’ phenomenon, let’s watch the spectacle in person and witness some of the science events which you only hear about on TV. To cut short the story (too late I know), I have been following the BIG ISRO story that India is planning its first unmanned mission to Moon sometime this year(2008). Now, this is really a BIG ‘space’ leap for the country as only a select few countries till date have succeeded in achieving the feat. When I checked out the details, the rocket launch to the moon was to take place from a place called ‘Sriharikota’ which to me sounded to be a place somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Well, it turns out that the place is very much in the same state I live in (that’s the land of migrants like me Andhra Pradesh) and it’s pretty well connected by rail/road. The district is called Nellore and it’s around 60 km from its capital Nellore city. The launch would take place from Satish Dhawan Space station which is a heavily guarded space station owned and managed by ISRO. I guess my best bet would be to find a place very nearby the space station which can give me a clear arterial view of the rocket launch.

When this thought came to my mind, I really thought it would be nice to have some company while witnessing the shuttle launch. I thought of checking with Chiku but he could not understand a word of this whole deal and kept nodding his head in anticipation of getting Gems (that’s Cadbury’s multicoloured chocolate balls) from papa and hence I had to give up soon enough before he started screaming for the chocolate (Moon can wait for him I suppose!!). But I did manage to catch hold of a few likeminded minds, some from my office and a couple of my close buddies. The opening line of this blog is what transpired when I just got off the phone after speaking to yet another concurring creature. So far so good. The dates have not yet been officially announced by ISRO and if all goes well, I will surely write another blog to describe my near heavenly rendezvous with … well Chandamama !!