Mangalyan - So what's the big deal?

Apparently ISRO shot off a rocket and it put a satellite around Mars. Now, unless that satellite can take a top angle shot of Deepika Padukone's assets and get the Nation's largest daily to tweet about it on the lines of "OMG! Deepika's assets are visible from Mars", what is the big deal? The way it goes these days, ISRO needs to arrange for Mangalyan to do exactly that if it is to get TOI to seriously tout its achievement loud enough to be 'heard over the clutter in the Social media". After all, who cares, otherwise, if one more satellite orbits Mars than was the case previously?

The Nation is, of course, delusional in putting up a Mars mission when so many live in poverty. US, Europe and Russia have, of course, eliminated all poverty in their countries, and the people there live in lands of milk and honey. Thus, they can indulge their fantasy to play with fireworks, and, of course, when they do it they are doing it merely in a scientific spirit of inquiry, which has no taint of any delusion whatsoever. India, though, ought not to indulge in any such activity and, if it does, it is purely delusional with no taint of scientific inquiry. We can put up factories to produce fancy cars, splurge huge sums on the latest in Smart-phones and Tabs, erect huge statues to our leaders, get peppered with ads of deodorants and foreign travel - in short, we can indulge ourselves in any manner whatsoever on Earth without having poverty thrown in our faces BUT it can only be delusion that drives us beyond the limits of this planet.

The taint of that delusion carries to the people who worked to make it a reality. After all, what does it matter that these people were able to so precisely engineer the rocket - in a country which has elevated 'chalta hai' to a fine art - and so accurately compute the orbital mechanics that they managed to insert the satellite in Mars orbit without hitch. They did it in their very first attempt - something that no single country had managed before. BUT - big deal - what is the use of such efficiency and such effectiveness when it comes in the service of a mere delusion? AND, after all, even if all these things were about as difficult for a small payload as it would be for a larger one, it was a small payload after all. Better to have a world record payload crashing into the Indian Ocean than a small payload actually orbiting Mars. AND, of course, much better to concentrate on the all-important performance of CSK in the Champion's league T-20 tournaments.

So, well, what if we are used to saying, "It ain't rocket science" to mention that something is not as difficult as rocket science AND this IS rocket science in which the ISRO guys have managed to come off with such flying colors? It is not like they have won the World Cup for India, is it? Even the Prime Minister needs to mention that this small achievement of ISRO's needs to get SOME acclaim - much like hockey players plead for some attention from a cricket-crazy nation.

So, okay, just because Mr. Modi was present there, we will sort of mention them for a day or two - unless someone has tweeted about some other starlet's legs in the meantime. We cannot all be deluded into pampering the egos of the ISRO guys when more important things like this plague the Nation.