My First time....!!!!

It is my first time and I am all excited. As the bus reaches the place, dark clouds hover above. We are worried. Once the bus reaches the destination, we are herded into breakfast. One hour later, we are on the bus again. This time, lesser space for seating in the bus. This bus is almost like a school bus. It goes through a lone road, a one way with greenery on both sides. Two more buses are ahead of us. I'm reminded of a scene from Kamal Hasan's 'Kuruthipunal'. I jokingly say "It looks right out of the movie. Somebody is going to kidnap us and the police will come!!" Laughter all around. Now trees appear on the right side. Then,a brief gap between trees that are not so densely populated as before. Ah! Water...it's blue, Wow!! It looks like it would have been a extremely popular global tourist destination.

Almost nine kilometers later, we reach! Finally. Yes!! This was what I was waiting for, for more than a week. It materialised only the previous night amidst anger, frustration and confusion. After all, this was to have been properly finalised three days before, which it was but finally had to be changed.

And when the second launchpad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota loomed large in front of our bus, my camera tried to photograph from inside the bus. After all, not everyone gets an opportunity to see a launchpad of the Indian Space Research Organisation nor the rocket that will carry India's first ever moon mission satellite 'Chandrayaan-I'. Notwithstanding the fact that I was able to sleep only for two hours since the pick up for the media was slated at 5 a.m. Ultimately, the media pickup left only at 6.30 am and almost everyone of us caught up on the previous night's sleep on the Volvo bus. However, a couple of rather irritating tv media personnel, apparently from a local channel were listening to music with their cell phone speakers blaring out fully loudly, disturbing our sleep. This is the fourth time I am at Sriharikota, but the first time being taken to the launchpad. Journos are taken to the launchpad very rarely because its a high security area and only when some very important event happens.

The launchpad is huge. Never seen anything like it before. It's beautifully coloured.It has grey, blue, red and yellow all around. An ISRO official leads us to a board that has pictures and description of how the rocket launch takes place. I hang around for sometime. It gets too technical and the heat gets to me. I would rather go and take some pictures of the launchpad. I mite not get another opportunity for all I know. Slowly, the number of journalists surrounding the ISRO official dwindle and they move towards the launchpad. Photos are clicked furiously. I frantically keep looking for our photographer. He is not to be seen around. "Must have gone to get some unique pictures. He will return..."I tell myself. I open my camera. The batteries are almost empty and the camera keeps switching off. "Damn!" I fumble around in the camera bag and find four more batteries. "Hope this works" It does. I take a few pictures. A few journos are now standing near the pit from where the rocket will take off and are listening to what Guruprasad is saying. Guruprasad is the ISRO PRO. I go and try to get some 'gyan'. He is explaining something, then a few questions are thrown at him. I click a picture of the group. I m tired of so many questions being asked. The heat again! "Damn...and we all thought it was going to rain when the bus entered the complex..." I move out again. A few more pics are taken.



Gopu is around. "Hey take a pic man". The sun is beating down. He clicks a few. "I can't see anything on the monitor. The sun is glaring down on it," he says. He's taken a few good pics. Now it's his turn. I try to get a good pic of him. Comes out well. And after sometime, a few more journos want me to click pics of them. I oblige.

Finally, my photographer! Ah! There he is with another photographer. "Went to get some different shots," they tell me. Competition can force people to think differently! They take more pics and finally a few pics of me are taken by them professionally. By this time, all of us are asked to get onto the bus again.

"We are going to see the rocket..." Guru says. "We are going near the rocket? You are taking us there?" I ask. "Yes yes...let's go" Once more herded back into the bus. Two more kilometers later, the rocket building. Then the rocket in view. Everyone's excited to see the rocket from such close quarters.Water! A few hands stretch out for water.

TV journos make sure they have the rocket in the background when they deliver their PTC's. So what are we poor print people supposed to do? So we take pics.



Heavy security around. Chandra asks one security personnel in Hindi "How do u feel about Chandrayaan?" "We are very proud". "Why?".."Arrey...we are Indians. We are employed by the Indian government. You are an Indian. You also feel proud about this, so do we," he says. "Who are you people?" he asks apparently not seeing so many cameras around. "We are from the press in Chennai..." "You are from Chennai and you speak shudh Hindi?" he asks. "Ya...we do....," comes her reply and I lose the rest of the conversation as by this point, I lose interest again. Another angle, more pics.


We leave after sometime. There's some discussion about some orbit the satellite would be going through. "Ya Ya..it's all going over my head...the heat...the physics of the orbit....grrr" I think. The way back to the hall is not that scenic, am disappointed. We reach the hall...press conference in a few mins...nothing great is discussed. It's all routine stuff. I get my story on the way back and the story is...