THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

 




“With freedom, books, flowers and the Moon,

who could not be happy?”

Oscar Wilde

 

Oscar Wilde was not an astronaut… He wrote beautiful plays, prose and poetry. And, when he lived on this planet, neither Man nor Machine had landed on the Moon. So, the Moon, always, remained a beauty at a distance… always inspiring and captivating.

And, for people like me – despite many Moon-missions by Man and machines – the Moon remains a celestial beauty… We like the mystery, the myth and, even, the superstitions around it…

Dumb?

Well, so be it… Some dumb things in life are so beautiful, you see!

I did not know, till last evening, that even the Moon had a dark side to it, and, we Indians were the first in History to do a soft-landing on this dark side of the Moon. And, like everyone else did, I, too, felt elated and screamed – “Hey we did it!”  Of course, I did not care to ask what’s the dark side of the Moon all about, nor did I care to ask what soft-landing signified… All that I was doing, like everyone else here, was -  “Hey we did it!”

Yes, I did the same when we won the cricket World Cup… or when one of our movies won the Oscars…

But, soon, when the euphoria was waning, I heard asking myself this question: “‘We’ means who?"… “Who did it?”

Sad!






We love to thump our chests when we or our machines land on the Moon. But, we sulk and feel ashamed to acknowledge our failed missions – hundreds and hundreds of setbacks and unimaginable amount of heartburns and disappointments…

Sorry. When we do not win the World Cup – we are still together in this mission, and when we miss the Moon, we are still together…

‘We’ means ‘all of us’ – the rich and the poor, the literate and the illiterate, the leaders and the followers… the Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Dalits and the atheists… yes, all…

The Moonlight falls on all… So, ‘we’ means ‘all’…

Therefore, let ‘all of us’ join in congratulating the bright minds who have been working hard to ‘do it’… May many, many more such missions be successful… and, yes, may we all continue to rejoice, shouting – “Hey we did it”…

No one – not even the beautiful Moon – is spared of the dark side… Maybe, that reality makes all of us here on land, and all the celestial beauties up there – yes, so wholesome…






Hope freedom, books, flowers and the Moon continue to make ‘us all’ happy…

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

LOVE

Pic’s.: 1. Walk My World 

          2. Nirmal John

 

Video: Michael Jackson/Davigiac

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