As told by- The Stop Watch
Purja followed all scientific discoveries meticulously, since this field was closest to his little heart. He wanted to be a chemist, but also a physicist and a nuclear scientist plus an astronomer and what not. He was spoilt for choices. Then he met the Russian tea guest who gave him a key ring with a picture of Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut: first human being to make orbital space flight in 1961. Our Purja had found his hero. He read everything he could about this first man in space and the first manmade satellite called Sputnik. He dreamt of building his own space ship one day in which he would explore the space and the planets. He was well aware of the difficulty of undertaking such an enterprise due to physical, financial and thousand other such constraints, just as yet. So he came up with an alternative.
He saved, begged, borrowed and earned money by trading his various collections i.e. toffee wrappers, pip collection, pencil shavings along with tiny pencils collection etc. to buy a box of fireworks containing a dozen Rockets at a Christmas fair. Around new year time he thought was perfect to test his space mission, what with celebrations all around and cold weather just like Russia. He tied all the rockets together with a piece of string, taking extra care in aligning them in a manner that the fuses could be tied together too. He wanted his rocket to be the best. Working carefully, hidden from public gaze, he checked the connections repeatedly. Only when all the rockets would light up together would they have the required propelling power to reach outer space. After much thought he decided to name it- Sputnik-I, here I stood for India and Sputnik for plain Sputnik. And he was ready for the big event.
But there was a slight problem. He wanted a cosmonaut to man his Sputnik-I. No Sputnik worth anything, would want to be man-less, he felt. Now, was the time to involve Gira. He had no choice since his coffers had run dry and however passionately he wanted to be the second man in space, he knew that his Sputnik-I was not up to carrying his weight even a centimetre. So, he roped in Gira who was rolling in cash after Diwali and Bhai- Dooj loot. It did not take him long to fire her already combustible imagination and soon he had a financer. Both the cousins trooped to the neighborhood toy store aptly named The Toyland. They bought a cheap but Rajput looking doll, named for some unknown reason ‘Basant Kumar’ by the manufacturer. And yes, Gira paid for the doll. They tied the newly enlisted cosmonaut Basant Kumar to Sputnik-I. Then the whole contraption was put in a launch pad, a tin six inches wide and about seven inches deep, placed firmly in the grass to cushion the impact. Cosmonaut Basant Kumar in his Sputnik-I was ready for his maiden voyage into the deep space.
“Let us put some aftershave on our cosmonaut. After all he does smell like paint.” Gira was kind of partial to perfumes. Purja did not see much point in doing so. As always there ensued a battle of wits that resolved soon enough after a usual exchange of heated argument. They were ready now.
With a Stop Watch in hand, our friends started the back counting. After few false starts where Gira jumbled the numbers or Purja’s match wouldn’t light, the task was accomplished. The 12 in 1 fuse was lighted. And they ran up the short flight of stairs to a balcony.
No one knows what went wrong that day. Instead of going vertical, Cosmonaut Basant Kumar zoomed horizontally into the parking lot next to the launching area, namely, the garden. Gira and Purja looked stupefied at the ensuing stampede of watchman, gardener and the drivers, shouting for help, caught between the zigzagging, fire ball. Sputnik-I manned by Basant Kumar was one resilient space rocket as it randomly chased whoever was stupid enough to be in its path, alighting gardener’s dhoti and burning a hole through watchman’s cap that he used to save his backside, finally lodging itself in a pile of dry grass and dead leaves collected for leaf manure.
“For once, both the space scientists were spanked. Basant Kumar was reduced to a bit of sticky plastic and the grass pile to ashes. Gardener’s dhoti and the watchman’s cap besides their nerves were damaged and all the drivers took a day off to recover from the assault on their legs. And at the launch pad, a tin stayed toppled sideways thrown some distance away, with a sudden impact of a dozen rockets lighting simultaneously, a vibrant proof to Newton’s third law of motion: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the whole night.”
Purja followed all scientific discoveries meticulously, since this field was closest to his little heart. He wanted to be a chemist, but also a physicist and a nuclear scientist plus an astronomer and what not. He was spoilt for choices. Then he met the Russian tea guest who gave him a key ring with a picture of Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut: first human being to make orbital space flight in 1961. Our Purja had found his hero. He read everything he could about this first man in space and the first manmade satellite called Sputnik. He dreamt of building his own space ship one day in which he would explore the space and the planets. He was well aware of the difficulty of undertaking such an enterprise due to physical, financial and thousand other such constraints, just as yet. So he came up with an alternative.
He saved, begged, borrowed and earned money by trading his various collections i.e. toffee wrappers, pip collection, pencil shavings along with tiny pencils collection etc. to buy a box of fireworks containing a dozen Rockets at a Christmas fair. Around new year time he thought was perfect to test his space mission, what with celebrations all around and cold weather just like Russia. He tied all the rockets together with a piece of string, taking extra care in aligning them in a manner that the fuses could be tied together too. He wanted his rocket to be the best. Working carefully, hidden from public gaze, he checked the connections repeatedly. Only when all the rockets would light up together would they have the required propelling power to reach outer space. After much thought he decided to name it- Sputnik-I, here I stood for India and Sputnik for plain Sputnik. And he was ready for the big event.
But there was a slight problem. He wanted a cosmonaut to man his Sputnik-I. No Sputnik worth anything, would want to be man-less, he felt. Now, was the time to involve Gira. He had no choice since his coffers had run dry and however passionately he wanted to be the second man in space, he knew that his Sputnik-I was not up to carrying his weight even a centimetre. So, he roped in Gira who was rolling in cash after Diwali and Bhai- Dooj loot. It did not take him long to fire her already combustible imagination and soon he had a financer. Both the cousins trooped to the neighborhood toy store aptly named The Toyland. They bought a cheap but Rajput looking doll, named for some unknown reason ‘Basant Kumar’ by the manufacturer. And yes, Gira paid for the doll. They tied the newly enlisted cosmonaut Basant Kumar to Sputnik-I. Then the whole contraption was put in a launch pad, a tin six inches wide and about seven inches deep, placed firmly in the grass to cushion the impact. Cosmonaut Basant Kumar in his Sputnik-I was ready for his maiden voyage into the deep space.
“Let us put some aftershave on our cosmonaut. After all he does smell like paint.” Gira was kind of partial to perfumes. Purja did not see much point in doing so. As always there ensued a battle of wits that resolved soon enough after a usual exchange of heated argument. They were ready now.
With a Stop Watch in hand, our friends started the back counting. After few false starts where Gira jumbled the numbers or Purja’s match wouldn’t light, the task was accomplished. The 12 in 1 fuse was lighted. And they ran up the short flight of stairs to a balcony.
No one knows what went wrong that day. Instead of going vertical, Cosmonaut Basant Kumar zoomed horizontally into the parking lot next to the launching area, namely, the garden. Gira and Purja looked stupefied at the ensuing stampede of watchman, gardener and the drivers, shouting for help, caught between the zigzagging, fire ball. Sputnik-I manned by Basant Kumar was one resilient space rocket as it randomly chased whoever was stupid enough to be in its path, alighting gardener’s dhoti and burning a hole through watchman’s cap that he used to save his backside, finally lodging itself in a pile of dry grass and dead leaves collected for leaf manure.
“For once, both the space scientists were spanked. Basant Kumar was reduced to a bit of sticky plastic and the grass pile to ashes. Gardener’s dhoti and the watchman’s cap besides their nerves were damaged and all the drivers took a day off to recover from the assault on their legs. And at the launch pad, a tin stayed toppled sideways thrown some distance away, with a sudden impact of a dozen rockets lighting simultaneously, a vibrant proof to Newton’s third law of motion: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the whole night.”
No comments:
Post a Comment