Chandrayaan 2 - a landing that was not to be and Prime minister Modi’s epochal address

A compilation of my posts from Friday, September 6, 2019 and Saturday, September 7, 2019.

It was lunchtime in California and I was streaming the anticipated Chandrayaan-2 landing live on YouTube at my workplace and listening to audio from “Tiranga Yatra” in a loop in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Tamil - fired up with nationalistic pride at the historic occasion.

I was rooting for India’s lander to plant our national flag and engrave the Ashoka Chakra on the Moon’s surface. 

I admit that I was shamelessly crying in my office - when it became known later 

that communication had been lost with the lander. Luckily, it was late Friday afternoon in California and presence of people around me was thin.

Following is what I wrote later:

“It's been a heady and emotional day for all Indians - even those of us who are sitting thousands of miles away from home.

Shri. Narendra Modi's address today to ISRO scientists is surely one of the finest motivational speeches ever by a Prime Minister of India. His personal gesture of
hugging and consoling an inconsolable Director of ISRO was 
unprecedented.

It is not just the ISRO scientists, but all of India that was feeling a bit demoralized.

This is truly exemplary leadership at its finest. He made many brilliant points about India's intrinsic civilizational strength and indomitable spirit in the face of grave challenges. 

Prime Minister Modi did not have to spell it out - but hinted at it - We have been a “wounded 

civilization” in the eloquent description of 

V.S Naipaul and have endured many great calamities, including:

- The Mohammedan conquest of India, which was described by Will Durant, the American historian as “The bloodiest chapter in the history of mankind”, including many mortal blows such as the conquest of Sindh by Mohammed Bin Qasim, the multiple demolitions of Somnath Mandir by Mahmoud Ghaznavi, Malik Kafur’s conquest of the Deccan and reaching all the way up to Rameswaram, the fall of the great Vijayanagara empire, genocidal foreign rule for 1300 years, the demolition of thousands of our most sacred Temples and forcible conversion into Masjids and forced conversion of the masses, millions of Hindus enslaved and marched to the slave markets of

Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Central Asia etc; 

Hundreds of thousands perishing on the way - so much so that an entire mountain range in Afghanistan was named the “Hindu Kush” (meaning “slaughter of the Hindus”)

- 300 years of European Christist colonialism

that saw the Portuguese Christist inquisition in Goa, the starvation genocide of millions by the British and many, many unspeakable atrocities and genocides that culminated in

the vivisection of Mother India in 1947 to create a permanent dagger embedded in her flesh called “Paakistan”.

- Humiliation by Communist China’s perfidy   in the 1962 war.

- To add insult to injury, 70 years of suffocating Nehruvian Stalinist rule.

Didn’t we endure it all and yet, survive to rise again? Didn’t we rise up again after absorbing each and every grievous wound inflicted on Mother India which would have otherwise comprised a mortal, terminal blow?

The Prime Minister's brilliant, inspired and inspiring oratory and touching gesture is analogous to Lord Shri Krishna's motivational speech (aka the Gita) to a demoralized Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra! 

Narendra Modi, spoke not just as the Prime Minister of India, but as the torchbearer of the proud Hindu civilization that is rising again from the ashes.

I proudly declare that I'm a born Hindu nationalist and a "BHAKT" ONLY of Hindutva and Bharat - NOT of any individual, party or organization! 

Why? Because, ONLY Hindutva and Bharat are permanent and immortal!

But, this is indeed worthy of "BHAKTI"!

Even arch ideological foes such as some otherwise obnoxious NDTV anchors are praising P.M Modi's inspirational leadership today!

The Director of ISRO, Dr. Sivan also apparently hails from a very humble background. His journey is very similar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own story. 

My sympathy is always with the underdog - Narendra Modi is the underdog, Dr. Sivan is the underdog, ISRO is the underdog and, there is no greater underdog than India itself!”