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The clear sky showed no sign of turmoil…

...at the pawns in yellow overalls

inspecting the chariot of the great warrior…

…who would, in a few hours, invade yet another celestial and heavenly body.

A civil strife was about to begin.

...but for the conquered moon, that stared blankly at its invaders

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…and the stars that winked knowingly…

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It was ironic that the very ides of March had been chosen to conquer both Julius Caesar and the red

planet.

At this hour of the night, when the rest of the world snoozed cozily in their beds, a control-room at the Michigan air-base,

headed by NASA, was in a state of an orderly chaos.

Static was in the air as physicists and computer-whizzes hurried about with their radio-

sets, putting into action…

They were putting their first man on Mars!

…their long-drawn dreams and fantasies of “mortalizing” the

Red planet.

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While the first rays of light peeked about the

mountain tops that surrounded the air

base…

and headed towards the inviting sky, towards the

stubborn planet, the alien land….

… the valley shook with

reverberations…

…as the space craft finally took off,

leaving behind the soothing and secure shelter of its mother planet SH

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…Far away from home!

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Now I go home!

But as he watched the pixelated image of the space-ship slowly move out the frame of his computer screen, the man responsible for this mission, Senior Research Scientist Yudi

Singh thought…

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WRITER: SHRUTI SHREYA

ARTIST : JYOTI SINGH