THE APRIL 8, 1984, issue of THE WEEK has Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma (later wing commander) and his fellow fliers on the cover. But I am in a fix about what to call the first Indian in space. He is an astronaut, yes. But the Soviets prefer cosmonaut; he went to space on a Soyuz craft. And, India now prefers gaganauts.
There is so much to remember April 1984 by—the Rothmans Asia Cup in Sharjah, for one. The Sunil Gavaskar-led Indian side lifted the maiden cup, and Surinder Khanna was adjudged Man of the Series. How many remember Khanna, I wonder, except for seniors like me.
As with Khanna, how many of THE WEEK’s current readers remember Wing Commander Ravish Malhotra, later air commodore? The opening spread of the 1984 cover story shows Malhotra testing his magnetic boots. Like the British royals have the heir and the spare, Malhotra was the spare.
April 8, 1984
Forty-one years later, we are set to have another Indian in space and THE WEEK is honoured to put Group Captain Shubhanshu ‘Shux’ Shukla on cover. Senior Correspondent Nirmal Jovial, Principal Correspondent Abhinav Singh and Senior Special Correspondent Puja Awasthi have together produced a comprehensive cover story for you, dear reader.
Even when we are putting Indians in space, India has not said no to asbestos, says Union Minister of State Jayant Chaudhary. Other than skill development and entrepreneurship, the minister oversees education and wants asbestos off all schools in India. “We may be the first ministry to actually take a stand on this asbestos issue, and I am also doing my best to sensitise different stakeholders,” he told Puja Awasthi.
Another article I loved is Chief of Bureau (Chennai) Lakshmi Subramanian’s interview with director Mani Ratnam. The genius says that cinema is a collaborative effort for him. Like putting people in space and like journalism, I told myself.
Chief of Bureau (Delhi) Namrata Biji Ahuja takes a look at how Bangladesh’s political future rests on how Muhammad Yunus and the interim regime handle dissent at home and pressures from abroad. She also interviewed Mahfuj Alam, adviser to the ministry of information and broadcasting, Bangladesh.
Coming back to the cover, other than the heir and the spare, there was a second team of gaganauts who had prepped for the 1984 mission—Wing Commander S.C. Mittal and Squadron Leader Yogesh ‘Yuri’ Suri, later wing commander. Resident Editor R. Prasannan wrote about Yuri in his column, and then the wing commander himself wrote for us last April, and I made a mention of it in this space. He became a radio jockey and actor after his IAF days.
While revisiting the 1984 issue, I came across interesting bylines. Two are known to me—former subeditor Patrick Jonas and former special correspondent K. Gopalakrishnan. A third byline simply says Observer, and nobody in THE WEEK now knows who that was.
The most unhelpful advice I got was this: “The only person who would have known the writer’s identity and remembered it is former editor T.V.R. Shenoy.” The man with the elephantine memory passed away seven Aprils ago, in 2018.
Another interesting bit in that cover comes from Jonas’s story. “Rakesh Sharma, 35, and Malhotra, 40, are not the first Indians to have sat inside a Soyuz spacecraft,” he writes. “Two other Indians had done it before, the Gandhis—Sanjay and Rajiv. While Sanjay did so in 1976, Rajiv had his turn in 1982. In fact, the commander of the Space Training Centre at Star City, Gen. Georgi Berzegoroi, pronounced Rajiv fit to be considered a cosmonaut candidate.”
Didn’t someone say that journalism is the first draft of history?