Hey buddy, we’ve landed on the moon.
But not before one billion people suffered collective tachycardia. A young girl in the TV9 Bharatvarsh studio spoke for all of us when she said, “My heart was going dhak-dhak.”
Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) live telecast of a small yellow probe’s descent upon the moon was described by the hosts so matter-of-factly (we didn’t actually see the Chandrayaan-3 touchdown) that it increased our blood pressure.
Loud applause followed with a release of tension: “India has landed,” announced an India Today anchor. The New York Times was more imaginative: “Two visitors from India—a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan—landed in the southern polar region of the moon’’.
This was too prosaic for the mainstream Indian newspapers that devoted reams of newsprint to the “Moonshot moment’’ (Hindustan Times) this morning – anything from 3 to 4 pages each. Why, even the normally staid The Hindu came up with, “India lights up the dark side of the moon”.
The Times of India borrowed unapologetically from the famous American TV series Star Trek in its opening line: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” The papers feted and profiled the ISRO scientists, looked back at India’s space journey, and tried to answer the question already on everyone’s lips: What next? The sun, of course. HT told us ISRO’s Aditya L-1 spacecraft was eyeing the sun.
In its editorial, Asking for the moon, and getting it, The Indian Express called Chandrayaan-3’s landing “one of the most defining moments in history’’.
There was a distinctly proprietorial air to the media’s coverage — we hadn’t only landed on the moon, we owned it. “The moon is Indian,” said The Indian Express; “Moon now in India’s orbit,” added The Hindu.
For once, TV news channels agreed with print media, though in a more militant fashion as if we had just won a war: “Chandra Yeahhh!” (India Today), “Jai Chandrayaan Jai Bharat, Jai Vigyan” (India TV), “We have won the moon” (TV9 Bharatvarsh), “India conquers the moon’ (Republic TV), “The moon is now ours” (Aaj Tak).
Oh, by the way, you should know that our news channels were already on the moon before Chandrayaan-3 landed. But more about that later.
Also read: Chandrayaan-3 shows more than just ISRO’s excellence. It’s the STEM catalyst India needed
We became space-literate
And what of we, the people? We admired the moon: the first close-up photographs from Chandrayaan-3 made the moon look like pista ice cream or soufflé. Really?
Otherwise, between newspapers and TV, we became space-literate. We learnt a whole new dictionary of phrases: Spectra polar metrics, rough landing, soft landing, hard breaking, fine breaking, terminal descent, translunar orbit, RAMBHA — and everything about the “15 minutes of terror”.
We read and listened to intelligent people say intelligent things and watched TV news outshine print media.
Newspapers can’t compete with a live event on TV nor could they capture the images Chandrayaan-3 sent or convey the immensity of “Ek dum aur bilkul shudh” India’s moment of history (TNNB).
Prayers and duas
As news channels bided time for “Jai Hind on the Moon” (Total TV) on Wednesday, they fanned out across the country to interact with school students.
“You want to learn about Chandrayaan-3?’’ asked the NDTV 24×7 correspondent in Bengaluru on Wednesday afternoon. A schoolchild shook his head in negation. He was a rarity.
We saw children waving the Tricolour in the TV9 Bharatvarsh studio, students creating Chandrayaan-3 models of paper on Times Now, and some pupils at planetariums (Aaj Tak) and Delhi’s India Gate (Times Now).
Their parents and elders were seen praying for the success of “India’s Moon Mission” (CNN-News18). TV news brought together Indians of all faiths, showing us — and telling us — that people offered “dua” in temples of Ujjain and dargahs in Lucknow (India TV) for the mission.
These prayers echoed around the globe — well, at least in North America. Republic Bharat found prayers being offered in Texas and New Jersey. On Times Now, a non-resident Indian (NRI) in Canada said that his joy knew no bounds; he was celebrating the success of the “peaceful, gentle people’’ of India.
Yes, but we have a scientific temper too — reactions to Chandrayaan-3’s landing attest to it.
Mercifully, news channels ignored the politicians—well, almost. Hindi news channels such as Aaj Tak wanted to know what Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Manoj Tiwari thought of the moon landing. Huh?
Star-struck channels sought the views of actors like Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan. The latter said that Indians’ chests were “bursting with pride’’ (Times Now). And then there was the ubiquitous guru Ramdev who burst into a song (Zee News).
But mostly, we saw, read, and heard from many scientists. You may not have understood everything they said, but at least you knew it was accurate.
There were profiles galore of the ISRO team–Republic TV even spoke to Kartikeya Sarabhai, India Today to Mallika Sarabhai, the children of the legendary scientist Vikram Sarabhai. There were detailed explainers on the “ABCD of Chandrayaan-3’ and its descent onto the moon (Times Now Navbharat).
The moon cast its spell on TV news anchors too: Navika Kumar (Times Now) couldn’t stop beaming and even Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami pushed the mute button. Seldom before have they been so eager to allow their guests to speak – here was a subject the former knew little or nothing about and didn’t mind admitting it.
The moon landing before Chandrayaan-3
Well before Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon, our intrepid news astronauts stood on the “dark side of the moon’’ – at least in the TV studios.
NDTV 24×7 had its news anchor and the science journalist Pallav Bagla standing firmly on a replica of the moon’s surface.
Yes, you got it right — TV news studios had been converted into a lunar lounge. Times Now Navbharat was doing “Jai Ho’’ with Chandrayaan-3 on the moon; TV9 had a 3D model of the spacecraft that they could dart in and out of; Republic Bharat was floating somewhere in the sky with the moon rotating above it; Zee News had Chandrayaan-3 landing on the moon with the Indian flag firmly embedded in the ground, India TV’s “Chand pe Hindustan’’ was a computer-simulated replica of the landing.
You could tell that for the first time in a long while, the media and its audience shared the same emotion: pride.
The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)