An inspirational memoir of space exploration and hard-won wisdom, from an astronaut who has spent a lifetime making the
impossible a reality.
An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth Chris Hadfield Pan Macmillan
Pages: 282; Price: Rs 599 |
From the very first line, the reader gently floats in to the book’s plot and sees the world through the author’s eyes even as he describes islands seen from space as ‘sprinkled across the sea like delicate shards of eggshells’.
The author looks back at his life through a simile of a square astronaut (with all his equipment) and a circular exit hatch in the spacecraft. He mentions the incident of July 1969 – Neil Armstrong on Moon – which changed his life and gave him the desire to become an astronaut. But later incidents reveal that his resolve is not limited like other children to merely playing ‘space mission’ or dreaming about it under a massive poster of the Moon.
All through his efforts in achieving his aim, his attitude was one of, “It’s probably not going to happen but I should do things that keep me moving in the right direction”. So even though there was a steely resolve, it wasn’t the do-or-die sort of scenario that may end in disappointment. After many years of becoming a navy test pilot came the Canadian Space agency ad which read, ‘Wanted: Astronauts’. Within 10 days he, with support from his wife, put together a professionally bound resume but his application had company – 5,329 other applications. For long becoming an astronaut had been a theoretical concept for the author.
The author then candidly speaks of how he would travel very often and says that people around you will let you know in no uncertain terms that your single-minded dedication bears a striking resemblance to pig-headed selfishness. He says that after a while when he got home, there was no longer a hero’s welcome.
The author, Colonel Chris Hadfield, had spent decades training as an astronaut and logged nearly 40,000 hours in space and orbited earth 2,336 times. As an endeavour to promote space exploration his music video, a zero-gravity version of Daniel Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ received over 10 million views in its first three days online.
In a very interesting take of his thought process, he speaks of his methodical approach to picture the most demanding challenge, visualise what he would need to know to meet it and then practise until he reaches a certain level of competence. In this context he mentions an Elton John concert where he thinks of a scenario where he may be asked to sing ‘Rocket man’ on stage. So he practised till he felt comfortable that he would at least not be booed off stage.
Apart from providing an insight into the daily routine of an astronaut, nuggets of wisdom for everyday life are strewn throughout the book like so many stars. About whining he says that it is contagious and destructive. Comparing notes on how difficult something is may initially promote bonding but quickly morphs in to the sourness of resentment, making the hardships seem more intolerable and also doesn’t get the job done.
On difficult people he says that obnoxious behaviour of those people whose objective is to belittle others and make them doubt their own competence stems from their own insecurity since they feel others are out to destroy them.
So instead of just flipping through the book if one were to contemplate where they figure in the scheme of things and adopt some of these virtues it would make the world a much better place.
R Srinivasan
