IT seems we’ve been fascinated by the moon since the earliest days. The ‘we’ includes not just humans but other creatures as well. Many companies use the myth-inspired wolf howling at the moon logo. There’s folklore about the Chakor circling the moon as a symbol of unrequited love. The idea that erratic mental conditions are caused by moon phases led to the term ‘lunatic’, meaning ‘moonstruck.’ Science shows that the rise and fall of ocean tides are driven by the moon’s gravitational pull.

Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, was the first human to orbit the Earth in 1961. American astronaut Neil Armstrong took the famous ‘one giant leap for mankind’ by walking on the moon in 1969. As is common in this part of the world, we stuck to our usual claim, that is, ‘did it before everyone else’, albeit in that near-lunatic state called poetic inspiration. In our Indo-Persian cultural tradition, this closest of celestial bodies is likened to the most divergent objects and relations, such as the beloved’s face and the maternal uncle. The majority of Muslims still determine the religious calendar and festivals by the moon phases.

While the faithful around the........

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