If I puncture a few – or many – chests puffed up with pride, it’s only because I’m an obnoxious, cynical, ignorant prick. I have the utmost respect for the scientists who worked on the Mars Orbiter Mission. So it’s not you; it’s me. In a nation of over a billion I must be a rare one, maybe even the only one, who had no clue why we have a mission sent to/around Mars. Everybody else is chest-thumping (careful there, you might bust your coronary), desk-thumping, tub-thumping (careful here too; an obscure one-hit-wonder band might just sue you), fist-pumping, tear-jerking in ecstasy. Members of various communities want to suddenly recognise their ‘brothers and sisters who did the community proud’. FB and Twitter have gone into overdrive as the Iyers and the Nairs, the Mehras and the Mehtas hunt down their own. I suspect when they do that they’ll see that unassuming fellow next door whom they scorned as a geek and a nerd. Yeah, that should be a fun meeting. The real estate maven are drooling and the autorickshaw (tuk-tuk to you foreigners) drivers are rubbing their hands in glee, their greedy eyes popping at the very thought of the out-of-this-world fares that they can demand. Everybody else knows what this is all about and how much the human condition will be elevated as a result of this great spin-off. Whereas me, I’m just going around in circles much like the Mars Orbiter (that’s an ellipse, you say?). My terrible ignorance has had me riding nightmares through hellish landscapes these last few afternoons (yep, that’s right). No, not Mars; that is obviously a rapturously lovely planet. Heck, what is this mission? What, WHat, WHAAAAT?

And then a group of people mentioned that it was to prove that men, and only men, are indeed from the 4th planet. That’s when it struck me that everybody else is an ignoramus too – it’s just that they don’t know it yet. See, Mars already has this.

So now you know; your mission is a dud. Wait, wait, wait unless you meant to bring Capt. John Carter back to earth…er…Jasoom.

P.S.: If any of you is offended by this, didn’t you read the first three sentences? Lighten up. Levity (Red Bull, suck on this) gives you wings and sends you flying without spending billions of dollars.