NEWSSpecial

40 years on India still resonates in space, thanks to Voyager-2

Nasas ground-breaking Voyager-2 mission enters its 40th year this month, and it is a proud moment for India as the spacecraft is carrying a golden record with different sounds of earth and international music and one of them is from India.

Voyager-2 was launched on August 20, 1977, and is the first spacecraft to have flown by all the four outer planets–Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune. The music of India is a Hindustani classical composition called “Jaat Kahan Ho”, rendered by Surshri Kesarbai Kerkar, a noted khayal singer of the second half of the 20th century.

The song, which lasts for three minutes and 25 seconds, is a part of the 12-inch gold-plated copper disc carried by Voyager-2. Its twin, Voyager-1, launched on September 5, 1977, also carries a similar disc.

Timothy Ferris, who was as a producer of the Voyager Golden Record, proudly notes that Kesarbai, who was born in 1893 in Goa, was awarded the title of ‘Surshri’ in 1938 by Rabindranath Tagore on behalf of the residents of Kolkata – a rare honour.

“One of my favourite transitions on the Voyager record comes when ‘Flowing Stream’ ends and we are transported, quick as a curtsy, across the Himalayas to the north of India, by Surshri Kesarbai Kerkar,” Ferris says.

He writes that Kesarbai made this recording when she was past 70. Apart from the music, the record also carries a message in Hindi which when translated means: “We are citizens of earth: We are greeting you.” The other Indian languages represented in the record are Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Telugu and Urdu.

shortlink

Post Your Comments


Back to top button