Neil Armstrong (Pic: NASA)
In my childhood in the 1960s, there was the real Moon and there was the poetic Moon.
The real Moon was often a sharply etched silvery white disc firmly glued on Ahmedabad’s near desert clean sky. In contrast, the poetic Moon was like a beautiful apparition that teasingly peeped from behind the veil of the poet’s imagination and whose beauty lay in its unattainability.
That there were people in a distant land preparing to fly to the Moon, land on it and walked around a bit seemed to fit well with the lunar folklore. So much had been imagined about the Moon that someone would actually set foot on it did not seem all that outlandish as long as it was just a fantasy. If a woman’s face could be as glorious as the Moon, it was rather obvious that a man would reach out and touch it.
I could not tell you much at all about July 20, 1969 except that I was eight years old. My only indirect connection to America was through my father Manharray’s pen pal Carol. I have no specific memory of Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon other than that it had indeed happened. As I said the Moon was so integral to one’s existence, not the least of which was because of its spectacular waxing and waning over the Ahmedabad sky, that the enormity of putting a man on it was almost entirely lost on me. The poet had primed us all with so many fantasies about the Moon that landing on it did not feel all that fantastic.
It was only a year or so later, when Carol sent my father a bunch of Apollo 11 memorabilia, including a copy of the picture above, did one begin to gauge what had happened. I remember there was also a picture of Armstrong on the lunar surface with the US flag behind him. The one below is the one I am talking about. I just found out from the NASA website that this was the only good picture of Armstrong on the lunar surface. It was taken by his fellow astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin.
The only good picture of Armstrong on the lunar surface (Pic: Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin for NASA)
Armstrong’s death yesterday at the age 82 ends for me personally that era of childhood so studded with the Moon and stars. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, the immoral words of Armstrong on landing on the Moon were not fully comprehended by me then. I remember asking the elders in my family why, if it was a small step for man, it was so such a big leap for mankind. One of the commonest answers was, “Ketlun saras keedhun. (How well he said it!)”, which was really no answer.
Armstrong’s footprints on the Moon left an indelible mark on me in so much as they countered the poetic exultations about our immediate celestial neighbor. The Hindi movie songs weaving in the Moon into their narrative that came after the Apollo 11 mission sounded a bit odd because I would go in my mind, “Yeah but Armstrong walked on that.” Of course, even now the Moon remains probably the most used celestial body in Hindi cinema to underscore the ultimate feminine beauty. The poet could not care less that the lunar dust, whose reflective qualities give the Moon its resplendence when the sunlight bounces off it, is actually quite hazardous.
I remember for the next two to three years after Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s landing, they too became as unattainable as the Moon itself. It was as if anyone who came in contact with the celestial body whose virtues were endless were transformed and became part of the lunar folklore.
Interestingly, when the word got around in the the neighborhood that the Chhaya family was actually in possession of the Moon landing pictures we became local celebrities within half a dozen homes. The Moon’s reflected glory reflected a bit on us as well. They did not know that NASA would have sent those pictures to anyone who asked for them.
As Armstrong’s family said in a statement, the great astronaut remained a “reluctant hero” throughout his life because he genuinely believed he had merely done his job for the country. We live in a celebrity obsessed and saturated 21st century where keeping up with the Kardashians is regarded as a genuine achievement. It is only wise that Neil Armstrong chose not to trivialize his and NASA’s accomplishments by competing with the Kardashians on television.
I await Neil Armstrong 2.0 to land on Mars or any other body for that matter. Here is to a man who has just taken a giant leap into eternity.