From Moon to Jalandhar

This article was published in 'The Tribune' on 18th July 2019 - https://epaper.tribuneindia.com/

Lunar rock

It was 1969. The year of relative tranquility, President Kennedy, Apollo 11, and of course of the mankind landing and leaving its big footprint on Moon land. Many later era evils such as, unrests, sectarianism, secessionism, terrorism etc., had yet not reared their ugly heads. Commander Neil Armstrong and the module pilot Buzz Aldrin had landed their Apollo Lunar Module, nick named, “Eagle” on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. The catchy phrases like, “The eagle has landed” had set the tone for all. The world was agog with excitement and hope and we, a Punjabi family of a judicial officer, living in Jalandhar, were not unaffected by this surge of general optimism. I was then barely into my second standard class but could very well sense the all round excitement and the general feeling that humanity was now poised for some kind of ‘quantum leap forward’. What would that leap mean and bring to humanity, no one really knew.

The Astronauts, during their, mission on the lunar surface, had collected 21.5 kg of Lunar material to bring it back to earth. Looking back, I now find it surprising that some of that material from Apollo 11’s mission to Moon, found its way to Jalandhar. I had recently watched at least one Sci-fi film about humans on their voyage to Moon, finding themselves confronted there with horrible looking, monstrous creatures, thirsting to devour them, so when I learnt that some material, brought from the Moon itself, by the Apollo 11 crew, was going to be displayed in Gymkhana club, Jalandhar, my curiosity, knew no bounds and was filled with excitement and anticipation. I imagined the material or the rocks to be some kind luminous bodies, emitting soft, shimmering light. The problem though, was that we were not members of the Gymkhana club, and therefore could not rightfully gain access to the lunar display. I was however determined not to let the opportunity slip away. The club’s rear boundary was not far away from our official residence and a part of it consisted of barbed wire. On the day of the lunar display, I found a remote corner of the barbed fence and crawled under it, to reach the other side. I found myself inside the club without anyone bothering to notice a little kid on a day as special as that. There was a long serpentine queue of people eager to see the lunar rocks. I had till then not seen a longer line of people anywhere. I patiently stood and waited for my turn at the end of the queue. I do not remember seeing any other kid standing in that line, all were mature adults. After a long, slow crawl, for what seemed like a very long time, and it was now getting dark already, I finally reached the glass casing, in which was kept the ‘material’ collected from none other than the Moon itself. However I was hugely disappointed to see that the lunar sand and the rock did not seem very different from the ‘mitti’ (dirt) and the stones we see all the time on mother earth, except that it seemed made of fine granules like stuff. There were no luminous rocks emitting shimmering lights, as the child in me had imagined.

That was my first lesson in learning that the realty is often not as glamorous as we seem to make out from the images on the screen. However when our own Chanderyaan brings some material from the Moon later this year, in 2019, exactly 50 years later, and the same is on display, I would still be queuing up for a glimpse of a fraction of “Chandamaama door ke”.

Advocate Sudeep Mahajan

H.N. 1546, Sector 36-D, Chandigarh

Mobile: +91-9814025102

This article was published in 'The Tribune' on 18th July 2019 - https://epaper.tribuneindia.com/

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