Childhood ambition

Astronomy! My childhood ambition was to be an astronomer. More than the practical love of the subject, there was an imaginary quotient.

At an age when what ever mom tells means the world, I was very close to family and grandparents. They were very religious and followed most of the customs and I grew up hearing to stories from the legendary epics of India. I was told and believed there are worlds like heaven up in the sky and that we are not so blessed to see them all. Penance could empower one to be able to see them and also see angels. But people performing penance would mostly be reincarnations of holy beings. Hence penance was preached to be out of reach. When I used to ask the most innocent childhood questions like can I bring down the moon or the stars or what does it take for me to reach them, I once got an answer that a rocket can take me near to them. And then I got to know that astronomers are the people who get to outer space without penance J and they are very much humans and need not be reincarnations of angles or gods. Well that sparked the thought I believed astronomers are more blessed than us as they get to see more then earth in the vast creation of god. There started my love for the subject.

I grew with lot of fascination for astronomy. Wanted to be a scientist ….. until one day I had a encounter. At a tender age that I could correlate things, I was exposed to the pain of people, the hungry and the poor. In a debate, one questioned me, there are quite a few problems on earth that are not answered why does one want to spend huge money on probing the space. God made us to live on earth and we better stick to it. I lost the debate. The bottom line remained that research is something that exhausts resources but we cannot gauge them. Was in a state of confusion. But could not kill the love for the subject or pay a def ear to the sufferings on earth.

I am not in the field close to astronomy. Not into social service.  Living on tangent for now… reading on scientific articles and sometimes helping people in need.