A SMALL STEP FOR MAN












July 20, 1969. I was a 11-year-old boy. I remember that rainy day. Our school had just started, and, suddenly, there was this announcement: “The schools, nationwide, will remain closed for a day!”


And, the reason?


“Man has just landed on the Moon!”


What a feeling that was!


Thousands of miles away from America, there, in one of the remotest villages of Southern India, we were asked to celebrate the historic moment – of Man’s first step on the Moon!


It was not the feat of America or Neil Armstrong; but, it was ‘Man’s’ feat, mind you!


Exactly fifty years later, on this July 22, when our own nation sent the unmanned rocket to the Moon, it’s a rainy day, too, here in Mumbai. Like my fellow citizens, I, too, was feeling proud of our nation’s feat…


Not a small feat for a nation burdened with its multiple problems… Imagine the feeling: If Chandrayaan-2 successfully lands on the Moon, we will be only the fourth nation to accomplish it after America, Russia and China!


Fifty years ago, the school, that I went to, served milk and mid-day meal from the aid received from the Western countries. So, it’s not an ordinary feat for such a country to aim for the Moon… Yes, not bad at all!


But, then, even though there was no TV, internet and social media in those days, we could comprehend what Apollo 11 had achieved. Even though I was a little village boy then, I could understand the profound meaning of Neil Armstrong’s iconic words: ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”


I don’t think many kids, last week, felt the same way as we kids did half a century ago… Leave alone the excitement of a surprise holiday!


The Moon is not the private property of America, Russia, China or India. It’s God’s property and, He has placed it up there to give us light in the nights… To cause waves in our seas… To keep our dreams, hopes and romances alive…


Do kids still grow up on those Chandamama stories? I have no idea. But, the Moon – the full-moon, the crescent-moon or no-moon – never ceases to inspire awe and romance in my bosoms…


Maybe, that’s the reason why I was more excited fifty years ago than this July. Maybe, the ‘small step for man’ continues to fascinate me more than the ‘giant leap for mankind’!



GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Business Standard


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