I hate missiles.
They are inhuman. But, of course, you might say, that is the idea. I hate
missiles because I like a fair fight, if at all. Firing missiles with a push of
a button is not fair. Don’t give me examples of other countries and how all is
fair in love and war. It is not.
Yet, we in India
have been jubilant over the Agni-V ballistic missile that took off from Wheeler
Island off the Odisha coast on Thursday.
I tried to get
excited as I saw a few clippings on television and then some photographs.
In repose
it looks like a giant-sized pencil. It reminded me of a fairytale where a young
character stares wide-eyed at this marvel and tries to grasp it in her hand and
she just cannot. And then with a great rumbling sound it moves on its own and
whooshes off into the sky, writing out something on the clouds in red letters.
The girl cannot read it clearly and the pencil is gone. She cries. For some
reason I think of the character as a girl. Maybe, I am rewinding to my own childhood.
Missiles are an
adult childhood game. I want to applaud this longest range ballistic missile with
a range of over 5,000 kms. I want to start clapping when I read newspaper reports
that call it “a high five moment”, “a game changer”. I want to make angry faces
at the US for lecturing us to “exercise restraint” and to Chine for calling it
a “political missile”. We are just playing. So what if it can reach most parts
of China. I can reach China too.
I still see that
little girl and a colour pencil. But now I look closely and it has ‘Bharat’
written on it, and then it pierces the clouds and withstands heat of 3000
degrees Celsius. I had no idea heat could ever get that hot. I do not know many
things. I am sweating in 35 degrees C. This must be one swell of a missile. It
has the right name. Agni – fire.
We are now part
of the elite club of nations with Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)
technology like U.S., Russia, France and China. I read that, “India's policy of
no-first-use of nuclear weapons, Agni-V will provide the country with depth in
deterrence.”
This makes me
feel good. The missile can reach very far, can destroy, but unless somebody
else uses it first we will not do anything. I don’t know much, but I only hope
it does not start to rust, or its parts do not get consumed with all the wiring
inside. If it can withstand so much heat, then it must be careful not to burn
itself. It happens with so many things in life.
I know you will
tell me to shut up and stop this fairytale. You will quote some scientist who
said, “Today, we have made history. We are a major missile power.”
Okay. I want to
be part of history, of an elite club. I also want every little girl and boy to
get a colour pencil just like Agni-V to act as deterrence against hunger, and
to bring some cheer in their lives.
