Fascinations: Star Trek

It was a hot day in the African plains about a million years ago. An ape had just lost the last of his teeth from gnawing at coconuts for hours daily to get at the gooey white stuff inside. He picked up the rock he was sitting on for the gnawing ritual and smashed it on to the coconut, with astoundingly spectacular results. With that stoke he had given birth to the Stone Age.

(Of course, it was just a matter of chance that he smashed a stone on the coconut, he could have as well smashed a coconut on to a stone, then it is possible that the first of the ages would be a coconut age ;)! Maybe that's what happened in some alternative timeline. I am sure they have a fascinating history there.).

In any case, the journey of humankind over the millennia has been all about pushing the boundaries and extending the limits. True, the journey has been far from being an ideal one so far, many wrong turns have been taken and too few lessons have been learnt. Still there have always been those, like our friend the ape, who have strove to rise over their circumstance, be it through science or through arts or through any other means. In that process, those are the people who have shaped our history, our psyche and even our conscience. The innovators have made the world what it is today.

My love affair with Star Trek started almost a decade and three quarters ago, when a fledgling Doordarshan, in absence of locally produced TV software decided to air a series that had been reasonably successful in the US in the past. I became addicted almost immediately. What fascinated me most about Kirk, Spock, Bones and the gang was the spirit of exploration that literally extended to Space - the final frontier. The original Star Trek series, has often been called a sci-fi version of old western cowboy movies. To an extent, that may be true, but the fact remains that it advertently or otherwise, preached a message beyond the run-of-mill good vs evil story. Kirk's never-say-die attitutude and strong sense of ownership, that came out in almost all of those early episodes before political correctness crept slowly into the stories, had left an enduring impression on my young brain.

To me Star Trek is about stretching your limits, it is about team-spirit and loyality, it is about being always ready to learn and finally it is about prevailing over seemingly impossible odds and forging ahead. Which is what has kept me a loyal Trekkie all these years. The prospects of being in the stars, of flying, truly mesmerizes me.

As a kid I had memorized the Star Terk theme monologue which they would play in every episode:

Space-the final frontier. These are the voyages of Starship Enterprise. Its five year mission -
to explore strange new world, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!

These lines make me a kid all over again, they transport me from the practicality of normal day existence to my very own dream universe where it is alright to aspire to boldly go where no man has gone before.