'Ladies and Gentleman, at your right is Mike Wallace in the Super Hornet; coming in for a thunder pass', goes the commentator and even as a thousand heads turn, they are made to turn again for the aircraft passes in a blur. The commotion all round and the incessant clicking barely register. Without a camera, one is spared the act of juggling the joy of the present with the necessity of having to record it for posterity. This way I can experience the thrill that speed alone can trigger. It's a momentary thing though. A dose of it now and then. The rest of the time, my head is reeling with thoughts galore. At the physics of it, what it must be like to pilot one of these.
She does a tail-spin, and then in a wondrous arc, makes for the heavens. Within moments there is no sight of her. Western Classical ! Just when you long for more moments that take one's breath away, Tritsch-Tratsch Polka (Johann Strauss) plays and it's when one realizes that the whole thing is one long exercise in doing precisely that. There is something about Baroque that captures the grace and fluidity of motion. Be it a shuttle docking on a space station or mach-speed aircraft flitting about. As more escapist thoughts loom, the Super Hornet appears. Soon she is back in our visual window. During the quieter moments, when in an upward incline, she literally floats, refusing to be sucked into an orgy of speed. It almost feels as if there is a puppeteer above, holding the strings. Then she retraces the arc and it hits you that there are no shackles. If anything, the puppeteer is down below. This is fulfillment of the potential of man. And I drift of once again, into Zarathustra, Nietzsche and the Overman.
She does a tail-spin, and then in a wondrous arc, makes for the heavens. Within moments there is no sight of her. Western Classical ! Just when you long for more moments that take one's breath away, Tritsch-Tratsch Polka (Johann Strauss) plays and it's when one realizes that the whole thing is one long exercise in doing precisely that. There is something about Baroque that captures the grace and fluidity of motion. Be it a shuttle docking on a space station or mach-speed aircraft flitting about. As more escapist thoughts loom, the Super Hornet appears. Soon she is back in our visual window. During the quieter moments, when in an upward incline, she literally floats, refusing to be sucked into an orgy of speed. It almost feels as if there is a puppeteer above, holding the strings. Then she retraces the arc and it hits you that there are no shackles. If anything, the puppeteer is down below. This is fulfillment of the potential of man. And I drift of once again, into Zarathustra, Nietzsche and the Overman.
3 comments:
Dear Zed
Have u ever dreamed that u are floating in space, doing those magnificent hyperbolic loops, rolls, without anything coming in the way? That was the key which opened the doorway to flight. It occurs to everybody, but it took 20 centuries [A.D] for man to realise the ultimate in that.
Good that u could witness the demonstration. When several birds do the aerobatics, it is not unlike a well conducted symphony like u describe. Harmony in space!
u remember the ad for MRF Zapper radial tyres , a decade back? It featured two Maruti 800s doing a waltz to Prokofiev's music.Probably it can be extended to movements in space too.
Pa
May have been too young to recall the ad you mentioned. What you said reminds me of a more recent ad which, from your description, is not unlike the first ad. A couple of Maruti Zens with a violin piece.
My memory of the 2 Maruti 800s (involving the fetching Kitu Gidwani) says that it was J. Strauss' (insufferable) Blue Danube waltz. The one that goes Quack! Quack! ...Quack! Quack! every few steps.
I probably missed this one with the Prokofiev. That would (have) be(en) something.
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