New Delhi: Sixty-one years ago Yuri Gagarin made history by becoming the first man to fly into outer space, and a few months later in 1961 India hosted the Russian cosmonaut with enthusiastic love and warmth.
Gagarin had commandeered the first manned space flight on April 12, 1961, making a 108-minute orbital flight in his Vostok 1 spacecraft, propelling him into the highest stratosphere of global stardom.
In November the same year, he visited India and was received with great warmth and open arms at the Palam airport in Delhi.
Indians in large numbers cheered and greeted Gagarin and his wife Valentina Goryacheva as they stepped down from the aircraft after landing at Delhi. The cosmonaut clapped and waved as he walked down the stairs to reach the tarmac, and Russian children holding Russian-style bouquets were present there to greet him, according to archival footage preserved by British Movietone.
Dressed in a formal uniform and sporting an elegant cap, he received applause and cheers from Indians to whichever cities he visited during his tour of the country.
In Delhi, then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru played host to Gagarin and his wife at his iconic residence — Teen Murti Bhawan — in central Delhi.
“#GagarinWorldTour: Almost 7 months after his space adventure, Yuri Gagarin came to India and spent there 8 days. #Gagarin met Jawaharlal Nehru, addressed a huge gathering in Mumbai and received a raucous welcome from an adulating public across India,” the Russian Embassy in India had tweeted on April 12, 2020.
April 12 also marks the International Day of Human Space Flight named so by the United Nations to commemorate the first human space flight, carried out by Gagarin, a Soviet citizen. This historic event opened the way for space exploration for the benefit of all humanity.
However, with the current geopolitical situation amid the ongoing Ukraine-Russia that began recently, the anniversary is being marked amid a shadow of the conflict.
Gagarin in 1961 had taken off in his flight and landed back to what was then the Soviet Union, which got disintegrated in 1991, giving rise to multiple independent nations, including Ukraine.
At Palam Airport, a banner had welcomed him with a message “Long Live Indo-Soviet Cooperation for Disarmament and Peace – All India Peace Council”.
During his Delhi trip, he was also treated to a cultural programme, rode in open-top car with Nehru on Rajpath, and had acknowledged the greetings of the people with folded hands and waved enthusiastically at them.
He and his wife were also given a reception at the historic Ramlila Maidan, where the couple was welcomed with floral showers and Russian-style bouquets and balloons.
At an event at Safdarjung Airport, he was gifted with a model of a glider, and later he also sat in the cockpit of a small aircraft and posed for pictures. He also had signed on its fuselage in Russian with a date “30.11.1961”.
In 2011, the golden jubilee of the first fabled flight was marked in New Delhi.
The then ambassador of the Russian Federation to India, Alexander M Kadakin, was the chief guest at a gala function dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight into outer space, held at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture (RCSC) here.
“Gagarin’s outstanding feat marked a new era in the history of mankind. It was not only a national triumph but was an embodiment of a daring dream of thousands of people. It started off a chain reaction in every country to get into space,” Kadakin had said.
PTI
