Kabir Naik
Have you ever wondered as to what exists in the outer space? We can see the sky, the Moon, the Sun and even some planets from a distance! What if we could go close to these planets and celestial bodies? What if we could fly on space? Would our friends and foes be able to see us? There is only one way to find that out! It is by travelling to outer space!
And on April 4 I met my idol, the first Indian to be in space, Wing commander Rakesh Sharma. He is a retired man now but he feels sad that nobody went to explore the space after him. The then prime minister Indira Gandhi asked him about how India looked from the space and he replied, ‘Saare jahan se acha Hindustan hamara’. Let us know more about this space traveller and look at his journey from a simple man to a well-known personality!
Rakesh Sharma was born in the year 1949 on January 13. He was born in a Punjabi family. Rakesh went to St. George’s Grammar School in Hyderabad, India. In the year 1966, he joined the Air Force Cadet in NDA. His parents did not want him to join the armed forces as they had a tragedy in their family while serving the army. In the year 1970, Rakesh Sharma joined the Indian Air Force as a pilot. The young man was unstoppable. He fulfilled all his dreams! Little did he know that he would get the opportunity to travel in space!
He shared with us that he along with another test pilot were selected to go to space from the Indian side. He has seen Earth as a whole and when asked about the war between India and Pakistan he replied, “I wish more people would ask that question on themselves, especially the politicians!” “War is a fuss, never required. But it has been going on for centuries. As a society, we have to learn how to live together because we are still competing. We are not realizing that we are all inhabitants of this planet and that there is no other place which will sustain life as we know it today. So rather than we kill each other or cause mayhem and expend the resources which are limited, we need to live in peace so that we can live for long. Otherwise, we will finish each other off, if we are slow in doing that, we would have finished the resources which we have and the end result is still going to be the same.”
While speaking about the Gaganyaan which is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the basis of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people. He told us that our country was not prepared for a manned space programme and we would require to develop a lot of indigenous technology or buy a whole lot of technology from other countries. He also mentioned that manned space flight is a very technical field and there are many things we need to figure out. This tells us how prepared we are and also what false promises are being made to us by our politicians without knowing the real scenario.
Another startling feature of his personality was his simplicity. Any other person who would have achieved any feat even close to what Rakesh sir has done would have a sky-high ego. But Rakesh sir is a Jem of a person who is down to earth which was clearly evident in his interaction. I have learned from him that the more we have achieved in life our ego always goes reducing. He also has seen how small we humans are from space and I think that must have had a deep impact on him.
To sum up, we all together as a human race should understand that we only have one place to stay which is the Earth and fighting amongst ourselves is not the solution to anyone’s problems. When we understand how small we are in this entire universe we will not make the mistake of having a lot of ego. We also need to take the promises which our politicians make with a pinch of salt and need to verify them with the real situation and then decide whether we should believe what we are told or not.
It was a great experience to interact with such a great personality I would like to thank National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) and would love other scientific organisations to get these famous personalities in interaction with us students. This gives us students real role models who we can look up to and dream of becoming like them.
In the end, I would like to quote Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma” My mental boundaries expanded when I viewed the Earth against a black and uninviting vacuum, yet my country’s rich traditions had conditioned me to look beyond man-made boundaries and prejudices. One does not have to undertake a space flight to come by this feeling.” This tells us that we need to do something for our country and for the world as a whole and to understand that we don’t need to travel to space we can learn from this great man who will continue inspiring generations to come.
