Recently, I saw the movie Mission Mangal. And I’m so grateful that I did. While like any other movie, it may have its flaws, to me it was an epiphany. Alongside explaining the machinations of our space agency ISRO’s mighty mission to Mars, it held up a mirror to my own skewed thoughts and feelings.
Since childhood, I have heard tales of NASA, and how they have sent innumerable missions into space. Though some failed (space shuttle Columbia, for instance, which took away such brilliant astronauts, including Kalpana Chawla), most have been a success, and how. They recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing! NASA’s website and Instagram page are repositories of brilliant high-resolution images which are sure to amaze anybody. Compared to that, I thought, ISRO’s missions were laughable.
Pitting two pioneers of space research against each other is trivializing to both. The success of any mission is a win for humankind, not just the particular country, and any failure is a learning opportunity for future missions.
The movie serves the function of bringing this talented agency into the limelight, and thus into the hearts and minds of people. Where NASA has been the pride of USA and its people, the Indian common man has had a lot of distractions keeping him from cheering and rooting for ISRO, what with terrorism, unemployment, and many other socio-economic issues. Mission Mangal brilliantly showcases the efforts of a motley team with spirited passion at ISRO to send a mission to Mars. They face many hurdles, and yet they reach their goal- with a miniscule budget and hearts full of hope. It manages to inspire without being patronizing, and be patriotic without being jargon. Do watch it some time… it may pleasantly surprise you!
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