Some science and some religion

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Vishwa

He was your typical awkward teenager - uncomfortable with 'girls' all around, not sure if what he had done was great, yet liking some of the limelight.

The kid I'm talking about is Vishwanath B Hiremath - the class IX student whose rocket flew the highest in his intra-school rocket-making competition. It was just an experiment to give their students an idea of what rocket science is all about, that led me to this boy. The school had decided to teach them rocket-building, albeit rocket-firecrackers - and asked each batch of students to demonstrate their capability at the school grounds.

'Vishwa,' as he is called, struck me not because he came first - but because he cried. Soon after getting the certificate from the chief guest - in this case, Isro chairman Madhavan Nair - he was surrounded by mikes and cameras. Every channel wanted to know - did u expect your rocket to fly the highest, what has gone into making it, how long did you take and, of course, the statutory 'how do you feel.' Midway through the slew of questions, Vishwa got nervous - 'but I don't know English...' and started crying. His horrified friends gathered around - "hey what happened" "stop crying" "tell us what it is."

We too were horrified... and stepped back so he could control himself. A minute or two later he explained, "My parents stay in Bijapur, I've come to Bangalore to study, I'm staying with my uncle here and have studied in the Kannada medium all through until this year."

No problem, Vishwa. Kho na jao, hum angrezon mein. You don't need no English to build rockets.

Destination moon

It's too tempting to pass by, without mentioning.

Destination Moon was shot over a period of four-five weeks, starting somewhere mid-August. This half-hour documentary - the feature called '30 minutes' - was something we conceived last year - when we knew Chandrayaan was going to happen, when we knew Isro's - and India's - biggest moment in science was scheduled.

Saif, the producer assigned for it, soon became a good pal. I think my respect for him grew the day I skeptically went to Vasanti Annadurai's house. He insisted we should meet the family of Chandrayaan's project manager M Annadurai. I thought we shouldn't, it would unnecessarily lengthen the story and we were getting into things we should avoid. Reluctantly enough, we went to the Annadurai home. And my story changed entirely when Vasanthi told us - "My husband used to lie down on the terrace and watch the moon for hours on end, when he was younger. I used to tell him, 'Come down, it's getting cold.' But he never listened."

You don't hear such stories often. Not from scientists' wives. After that, our team was camping in Annadurai's house on Diwali day to do a story on his wife's payasam!

But I'm digressing. The point I really wanted to make here was this - Saif, I learnt during one of our many long days, is a college drop-out. He told me he had flunked one paper during his degree, and never bothered to go back to complete it. And Venkat, the cameraman who's been a companion through so many tough times, has studied precisely up to Class VII. He's not even computer savvy enough to check e-mail, doesn't care much for the Queen's language, and doesn't bother much about what others think about it. For that matter, Murali, the video editor who actually worked that documentary to the final shape it reached, got out of his diploma college within two years of joining - apparently he had a difference of opinion with the college authorities on what the minimum marks for passing should be...

Here we were, 3 dropouts and 1 reluctant BA-pass (yes, me), out to conquer the moon and the moon mission.

That's why, when I went up in the lift at Sriharikota to the 35th floor and walked out to the shaky podium, my first thought was not 'Wow, the PSLV's so awesome,' but 'oh god, am I going to crash down that many floors?' That's why, when someone told me about the apogee and the perigee, I asked him to please speak in English. That's also why when Madhavan Nair told me "it's like a 1,000 diwalis put together," I took to that more than his response of, "Chandrayaan is the biggest challenge about precision, trajectory, navigation and guidance control to reach the rendezvous point."

Must say though, I'm rather happy - and even proud - of the end result. Never let schooling interfere with what you want to do.

Ram naam...

Just back from a rather hectic tour of Mangalore, where Ram Sainiks have been teaching young guys and gals a thing or two about Indian culture.

The Ram Sena believes that:

· 'Pub culture' is 'bad.'

· Valentine's day is an international conspiracy.

· 1,000s of years of tradition can be wiped out by one single noodle strap.

If they had bothered to take a five-hour drive out to some tribal areas, I wonder which part of Indian culture they'd have been worried about.

More friendly tips that the BJP wanted to give me: "These girls are sent from far-off places to Mangalore to study. Is this how they repay their parents who spend lakhs for medical college?" And an ABVP activist who said, "I don't know what is pub culture, because we're not born in that culture. It's American culture, and we want it banned."

Interestingly, when the ABVP procession came there shouting 'bharat mata ki jai,' and cameras turned their focus on them in Mangalore, one smart ABVP-ite soon re-arranged the rallyists. One girl, who was right in the front row, was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

Someone (a guy, by the way), soon noticed and pushed her so she was stuck somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Unfortunately, we had her on camera before that :)

I rather like people fighting for Hinduism. I don't think it's bad. But my problem is with people who criticize without knowing what they are criticizing. As for the T-shirt incident, I only want to share this McBealism with that girl, if she ever reads this: "We're women, we have double standards to live up to."

Sita bhi yahan badnaam...

On the drive back, our driver decided to play some old Kishore Kumar hits during our journey through the ghats. And while I've always liked 'Kuch to log kahenge,' I think I was particularly struck by this line - "kuch reeth jagath ki aisi hai, har ek subah ki shaam nahin... tu kaun hai, tera naam hai kya, sita bhi yahan badnaam hui... phir kyon sansaar ki baton mein, bheeg gaye tere naina...."

Goose flesh?

Who will protect the protector?

Sometime in November last, I decided to mollify my mom who has been cribbing for many years that, while she has seen most of the rest of the country, no one has actually taken her on a trip around Karnataka. She particularly wanted to see some temples.

Our faith - and of course, our driver - took us to Sringeri, Horanadu, Udupi, Kollur and, finally, Murudeshwar.

It's got a neat little beach, a huge stone idol of Shiva painted silver and gold, and a story about how lightning hit the statue and broke its arm, and how it was fixed by some local big-shots later.

It's also got a huuuuggeee gopura, nearly 250 feet high. And in the middle of that is a bright red mask of a rakshasa. No, there's no story behind that. It's just the 'drishti gombe,' a mask that's put up so that no one casts an evil eye on a thing of beauty.

Now even our gods need protection, it seems.

Plastic faith

My memory of Tirupati is rather vague - I only remember going there when I was about seven, standing in a longer-than-long queue, getting a darshan of the crowd in front of me and telling my mom that yes, I had got a good darshan of the lord. I was afraid she would make me go back otherwise.

But my November tours also took me to Tirupathi - a bustling temple that's impressively organized in getting your finger-prints and photos before giving you a pass, and then promptly posting men at the end of every corridor to check if you've got a 'token.'

All around the seven hills are brightly painted notices - Plastic is banned. And when you queue up for the best thing about Tirupati - the laddoos - you have a bunch of banks who've queued up ahead of you to sell plastic bags at Rs 2 per. (Yes, really, banks have put up these stalls).

Do you blame me for being disillusioned?

What's in a surname?

Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioner V Ponnuraj has been asked a question he's never been able to answer - what is his surname? This man hails from Tamil Nadu, where you don't have a 'gowda' or a 'patil' to every name that discloses your religion, caste, sub-caste and reservation quota.

"Whenever I went out to some remote villages, people would share their problems easily enough. But because I spent so much time with them, they would invariably want to ask me what my surname is. I told him I don't have one. They refused to believe it. Finally I used to just tell them, there's no way I can belong to one of your castes... because I come from too far away... let's just drop it for now," he told me during a chat.

He's not the only one with surname problems, I guess. I've had my share - "your name ends with a 'n' sound.. you have to be a Malayali," is what a lot of people tell me... specially when they want to criticize me for being anti-Kannadiga. No amount of convincing them otherwise helps - for they refuse to believe.

I, too, have let the matter drop.

Former president dead?

It's amazing - and rather unfortunate -how school children knew about our former president's death before new agencies, government officials and even news channels knew about it. And indeed, before he died.

Two days after former president R Venkataraman was said to be in a critical condition, we were hounded by calls from a few parents and school kids - they wanted to know if the next day is a holiday. I was surprised - why? "Oh hasn't Mr Venkataraman died?" was the response.

A day later, an employee of Karnataka's health university called me to check about the same - is the next day a holiday?

Mr Venkataraman lived another three days... but there were many who killed him before that ... And if a small bureau like ours got that many calls, I wonder how many calls local papers and channels would've got. Is this what we want our kids to grow up with?

RIP, Mr RV, if it's still possible.