Many reports described India as ‘only the fourth country to reach the moon’. The time has come to ask why it was felt necessary to use the word ‘only’
China was not described as only the third country to reach the moon. What’s different about India? Pic/X
On August 23 this year, browsing The Guardian on the internet, I read the words, “India is only the fourth country to pull off a controlled landing on the moon’s surface, after the US, China and the former Soviet Union.”
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The world stood up and applauded this landmark moment for India. Because the landing was on the moon’s south pole, a rugged, unexplored region whose ice could provide water, oxygen and fuel for future missions to Mars, it was also a giant leap for space exploration.
I have an inner fusspot who, like Grammarly, likes to make niggling observations about inconsequential details. This time it quietly asked what was the great need to include the word only. Why couldn’t The Guardian have stated the plain fact, namely that India is the fourth country to land a craft on the moon, and left it at that? Why go out on a limb and add only?
I checked how many other reports had phrased it this way. It’s a long list that includes The Hindu, the Indian Express, The Week, Fox News, Financial Times, Yahoo News and several others.
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At first read, it sounded condescending. The reports seemed to be saying: No, India wasn’t the first country to reach the moon; that was the USA. It wasn’t the second; that was the USSR. It wasn’t even the third, that was China. India was only the fourth. Tut tut. Not a big deal. Should have tried harder.
Or did they mean to cue that there is more ahead, this is merely the beginning? India is only the fourth. The fifth, sixth and seventh are on their way.
But Russia became number two in 1976 without any such verbal shading. China, when it touched down on the moon on 14 December 2013, was not described as only the third country to reach the moon.
What was different about India?
Since the honour of the motherland was involved, I dug in and began to research everything known about the charlatan word only.
As an Indian, I have a long and dishonourable relationship with only. When I ask nosy questions that are none of my business, I am just asking only. If I am already on my way, I am coming only. Likewise if, contrary to your suspicions, I am hard at work, I am working only. When I finally see the precise garment I was searching for, I want that shirt only.
As the world knows by now, we are like that only.
But to my surprise, the world is also like that only, at least as far as the word only goes. This mild four-letter word is twisted and subverted to mean itself and its opposite, and then some. It is used to minimise and condone just as often it is deployed to bestow speciality and glory.
Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player, sang Elton John, demolishing with one word the instrument, the artiste and the song.
But the toastmaster can elevate and exalt in one phrase the season’s star attraction—today Olivia Rodrigo—as the one and only.
Only can also be snarky. If you met the superstar of Jawan and didn’t recognise him, a condescending voice might tell you that he is “only the most stupendous actor India has ever seen”.
I posted my only anxieties on Facebook and reaped a rainbow of responses.
My friend and author Maureen Myant didn’t think it was a putdown. “It means India is one of only four countries to land on the moon.”
Salil Tripathi, author and editor, thought it was straightforward: “Only four countries have landed crafts on the moon, and India is the fourth. Though it can be read as a putdown, I don’t think that is
the intent.”
Arjun Janah, old school chum, opined: “The phrasing is a bit compressed and awkward, especially perhaps to our eyes. It might perhaps be better worded: India is among only four countries to have landed a spacecraft on the moon.”
I don’t think India’s moonshot needs to be ranked and compared to be a triumph.
And perhaps we could agree that only is as slippery as an eel. It hates being easily understood.
Clever wordplay can subtly imply that what you did was grander than it really was, crowning you a winner even when you were the one knocked out cold. You could have gone on an all-night bender and been thoroughly spifflicated, but whether you’re indicted or exonerated depends on whether you are described as only tipsy, slightly inebriated or blind, rolling drunk.
Since Russia was clearly no match for the USA as far as moonshots went, a joke used to circulate back in those Cold War days about who was better at golf.
John F Kennedy, US President, was invited—so goes the joke—by Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev for a round of golf, which Kennedy won handily. The American press cheered and applauded their handsome young leader for taking down their arch-nemesis yet again.
The Russian press saw the game differently. “Our glorious Premier Khrushchev came triumphantly second. The US President, unfortunately, only came next to last.”
That word again.
You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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