OUR DAILY LEDGER
So, today, I am writing about another Armstrong. And, for another reason.
I had turned 11 in the same
month, July 1969, when Apollo 11 had landed on the Moon. I was in fifth
standard studying in a local school…
And, I still remember how I was
coming back home, all jumping with my friends… Hey, we were given a holiday!
The reason?
Man had landed on the Moon!
And, Neil Armstrong was this man!
No Television sets, dear… still
we kids knew how a man had landed on the Moon!
My dad was a huge fan of J.F.Kennedy.
He kept telling us that it was President Kennedy’s dream to send Man to the
Moon, before the decade ended, and bring him safely home.
President Kennedy did not live to
see his own dream come true… “He is watching it from right up there, sitting on
his rocking chair!” our dad would beam as he dramatized. We kids simply
believed in what our dad would tell us!
“A small step for Man,
a giant
leap for mankind!”
It took many years for kids like us
to understand what those
famous words
of Neil Armstrong meant…
Yesterday,
at 82, this Commander of Apollo – 11 passed away!
Except for the famous ‘first-step-on-the-Moon’,
there is nothing much I know about Neil Armstrong. I am sure, it is so with the
rest of the world, as well.
So, one can imagine how one’s
life is forever measured by that one great event! It would be difficult to wipe
it off the human memory… as difficult to wipe out the Armstrong’s maiden
footprints on the surface of the Moon. In fact, once, when he was asked as to
how he felt knowing his footprints would likely to stay on the Moon's surface
for thousands of years, Armstrong had remarked, "I kind of hope that
somebody goes up there one of these days and cleans them up!"
This hope would always remain a
hope!
The rest of his life, Neil
Armstrong had chosen to live a quiet life… He was a private man… content more with
meeting with dignity the daily little challenges of life. But, his Moon-walk
was his Destiny and it would live with him as his shadow till he died yesterday.
I did not know, how frustrating
such a situation could be till I came across Neil Armstrong’s remarks in one of
his interviews on CBS in 2005:
"I guess we all like to be
recognized not for one piece of fireworks but for the ledger of our daily work."
Oh God! This is a giant of a confession!
There is much more to life than just a few fireworks, now
and then…
Neil Armstrong says, my friends, that his daily ledger
contains much more than that one mind-blowing firework on July 20, in 1969!
It is time, we opened our own daily ledgers!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pics.: Yogita Tipnis
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