A Hug That Healed The Wounds Of An Entire Nation

That hug sent a message that Mr Sivan need not be so harsh on himself.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared with us possibly the most human moment of his political career when he hugged and consoled an inconsolable ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) Chief K Sivan.

The fact that he provided the solace and reassurance to Mr Sivan at a time when the ISRO chief was trying to cope with the pain of the unsuccessful attempt by the lander Vikram to soft-land on the moon was incredibly touching.

That hug sent a message that Mr Sivan need not be so harsh on himself. He and his team at ISRO have done something that simply cannot be expressed in words. Their mission Chandrayaan 2 has advanced the cause of science in ways that we may not even be able to comprehend.

Failure is not the end of the world. Even if we attach everything that we have to the final outcome, the son- fulfilment of it can and should never be used by anyone to try and belittle our efforts and our learnings, something which the Federal Minister of Science and Technology Fawad Hussain Chaudhary would do well to understand. Being a Minister of a proud nation of more than 200 million people, it is sad to see him resorting to this attitude of seeking pleasure in the genuine pain of others.

Many people might still be hurting that we could not achieve the final goal and that we were so near yet so far. But they would do better to remind themselves that all is not lost. Chandrayaan will still orbit the moon for a year and gather invaluable data on the only natural satellite of our planet. And that in itself is a very big achievement.

The space programs in ISRO have been very successful along with being extremely cost-effective. And this is just an aberration. I don’t need to state the achievements of our country’s space agency here because those accomplishments speak for themselves.

As Prime Minister Modi himself said that in science, there are no failures. There is only effort and learning. That is true for our lives as well. If we can adopt this kind of thinking in everything that we do, we can unlock the gates of positivity which has benefits that our minds may not be able to fathom at this moment because we are constantly forced by our society to be negative and hopeless.

Nevertheless, all we can do is to marvel at the genius of our scientists at ISRO and encourage them to keep moving forward and continue their good work.

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Aditya

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