BENGALURU: Two weeks ago, as the Chandrayaan team reached for the Moon, orchestrating a precision landing, clumps of scribes across India did their best to encapsulate the event in pithy headlines. Some attempted wit, others pun and political comment, some invoked wonder, triumph and even jingoism, and yet others were plain vanilla: The Moon is Indian, India lights up the dark side of the Moon, India over the Moon… A day later, editors patted themselves on their backs quite publicly on social media for their own efforts.
Be that as it may, the one headline that can lay claim to originality and which made the momentous event glocal, was ‘ISRO Layout to Chandra Layout’. It conclusively pinned the Moon adventure to Namma Bengaluru, and is a headline that only a Bengalurean can identify with. For the uninitiated, ISRO and Chandra are layouts in Bengaluru, set apart by 10km — ISRO Layout is in South Bengaluru, with an Abdul Kalam Park, and Chandra Layout is beyond Mysuru Road. No doubt this journey will remind the cynical citizen of the Moon itself, considering our roads are just as pitted as its face.
City folk may be none too proud about their clogged roads, where each endless traffic signal is accompanied by a distressed ambulance wail as background music, but they have puffed up their collective chest in pride over Bengaluru’s deep connection with the Moon, and now the Sun. It is here that the best brains of the country work tirelessly to build and launch satellites, rockets, rovers; behind the high walls and sprawling guarded premises of the space agency — almost in my neighbourhood — the thought of such mysterious projects taking shape is thrilling.
Bengaluru was also the home to the first and only Indian in space, Rakesh Sharma, with whom I have had a fleeting association — his son went to the same school that I did. We would gape at the celeb dad when he would drive up to drop him off. For Bengalureans, there are many such links. There is also an entire swathe of East Bengaluru named after ISRO. There is a second ISRO layout/ colony in Marathahalli, which is closer to the scientists’ place of work, an ISRO Lab, ISRO Satellite Centre, ISRO Quarters, ISRO Gate, ISRO Club… Antariksh Bhavan itself. As the country’s scientific community sets its sights on the Sun, Moon and various galaxies, their home Bengaluru struts under reflected stardust, its cap getting fuller with bright feathers.
(The views expressed by the writer are their own)