WHY YOU STRIKE ME LUNA?
OBSESSION WITH MOON ROCKS

Moon rocks in Pakistan

I am fond of diverse information. The magazine OMNI was of great interest to me. I got a subscription to it for a few years. Excellent articles on subjects unheard in usual circumstances. A necessary tool to keep up with the times. A long time back, there was a news about Pakistan in it. It not only made me shiver but sent shock waves into me. It said that the Pakistani former Prime Minister was in London (Benazir Bhutto), trying to sell a MOON ROCK with an arts dealer on Bond Street, London. The dealer was willing to buy it for something like 250,000 US$, but said that they would not be able to buy it, unless there was a release certificate from the Government of Pakistan. President Richard Nixon had sent it as a gift to President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto once upon a time. There was a NASA team in Pakistan in 1973, and the three astronauts visited this country. They had taken the flag of Pakistan to the Moon itself. It proved the obsession of a Pakistan Prime Minister with a Moon Rock.

A few days back there was another news in the Nation newspaper. A journalist had written the following:

“Our Prime minister wears a watch, a Louis Moinet ‘Meteoris’ that has a price of US 4.6 million dollars. According to the watchmaker Louis Moinet, the Meteoris watch includes pieces of actual meteorites, as well as pieces of the moon and asteroids.”

Two different Prime Ministers, both obsessed with the Moon Rocks in one form or the other. Ancient mythology point out to the facts that LUNA STRIKES PEOPLE, and it seems both our Prime Ministers were struck by Luna itself.

For us thinking people, poets and aesthetic prone sensitives, just looking at the Moon, thrills us. Owning a part of it is not something we can aspire for in any way. A famous Muhammed Rafi’s song still thrills us, “Chaudiween ka Chand ho”. The Full Moon is our blessing. Lovers in each other arms looking at the beauty of the Moon.

However the Moon strikes people in different ways. The sea level rises. Black marks on unborn babies. And werewolves too. People who howl in the night, chasing innocent like vampires. We were told when we were children that MAI CHARKHA KAT RAHI HAI, meaning an old women spinning her thread wheel. But the best was CHANDA MAMOO, making a maternal uncle out of the moon, loving and everything. In what way Luna strikes our politicians, one really does not know.