From the desk of Editor

Volume 10 Issue 8 August, 2019

“I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.”
-Charlie Chaplin

September 7th 2019 was no ordinary day. The anticipation of becoming the first was palpable. Subsequently we were all privy to Mr. K Sivan’s emotional break down when the Vikram lander carrying the rover of Chandrayaan 2 made a hard surface landing and disengaged with the Earth. There was a delayed uneasiness in a few of us for the ISRO chief’s behaviour. ‘Men don’t cry’. At least not the powerful, tough and competitive ones! This notion has long gone unchallenged. But something that’s even more vital to question would be the need for him to cry at that juncture.

Why did he cry rather than why did he cry?!
Crying predates speech in human evolution. There are 2 underlying concepts that we need to bring to focus. Firstly, humans have the unique ability to assess and predict mental states of others. This is referred to as Theory of Mind or cognitive perspective taking. Mr. Sivanwas conscious of the weight of expectations on this project and the sadness that ensued with its failure in the minds of all on lookers. Their sadness mean this sadness (due to the work of Mirror neurons) which was reflected in the tear she shed.

Secondly, we may be aspiring to be travelers in space but we are already travelers in time since the time we have understood the concept of “yesterday” and “tomorrow”-Mental time travel! This means to say that each one of us can mentally retrieve past events and also anticipate one’s future based on them. Our memory can move back and forth (think a head) in time. For Mr. Sivan, Chandrayaan 2 (2019) was the immediate past and Gaganyaan-India’s highly aspirational project of a manned missionin space, the future (scheduled for 2021). It was almost as if at that point in time Mr. Sivanhada for boding of the times to come. What if Gaganyaan were to meet the same fate as the sister concern??

Both these aspects highlight that crying has little to do with gender and more to do with empathy, episodic memory, emotion-driven systems and the lachrymal duct. For all of us who have had the social conditioning of forbidding men from crying, need to rethink. It is dis allowing expression of emotions which is a gross injustice to what makes us human!