Yes, sure, the title of our blog is directly borrowed from one of Thomas Hardy's superb novels, and, undoubtedly, one of my favourite ones. Thomas Hardy IS a great novelist, and his novels can move the cynical most. I should know as I taught "Jude, the Obscure" to successive batches of M.A. students for whom "sub golmaal hai, bhai...", well, less said, the better! Yet the worldiest of them all was shaken to the core, and unaffectedly, that I can sure vouch for, when I related the Jude plight to the immediate Indian context.
Well, that is not our theme today. Let not the word 'native' in the title delude you the typical way either. No, our blog is not going to repeat the favourite rant these days against the "Macaulay putras/putris".
Rather, the title refers to Subhanshu Shukla's safe and sound return to terra firma after a brief stay at the International Space Station. For me, it IS one of those historic moments for us "natives" as we were dubbed by the colonisers. Yet again gets proven the fact that we are as good as our wor(l)d. Remember that cartoon when first we decided to fire satellites in to the space?
This return, precise, on time (unlike the much, much delayed return of the ABCD Sunita Williams from the ISS) proves that it might be a short stay for this astronaut, but it is a huge, giant, long visit of a native, to quote Neil Armstrong the 'native' way. Hence the title, the re-turn of the native!
Pratima@While the whole nation cheered, tears flooded his mother's, and father's, eyes. Well, I do know this feel as my brother, a Merchant Navy Officer, would go on these looooong assignments. In those days without either satellite phones or the internet enabled communication, every letter posted weeks ago, reaching months later, meant much, a silent heart-felt prayer of thanks, and all the best wishes that no ocean could ever wash out!
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