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More than a decade ago, when I first heard “The Star Spangled Banner”, the lines—”The Rockets’ Red Glare”—intrigued me. I wondered about what rocket was Francis Scott Key’s referring to back in 1814 when the poem was written? Even though I was curious, at the time there was no Wikipedia at hand for reference, and over the years, I never really took time to look up more about this question.

But, strangely enough yesterday, after watching a video on YouTube about the Taj Mahal, I chanced upon a video about Tipu Sultan, The Tiger of Mysore, and there it was; the answer to the mysterious rockets in The Star Spangled Banner.

The story goes back to the three decade long Anglo-Mysore wars of 1766 to 1799, when first Haidar Ali and later his Son Tipu Sultan kept the invading British and neighboring princely states at bay. The main weapon which gave Tipu Sultan and his father the edge were rockets.

Even though rocket artillery were used by the Chinese, Mongols, Turks—and later found its way in to Europe; its use was limited. It was Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan who took it to the next level. Instead of the traditional bamboo casing, they used iron casings, with sharp blades and iron point attachments, making Tipu’s rockets a lethal and effective weapon.

The British received an unpleasant surprise in 1780 when Hyder Ali brought into action the Guntur iron-cased rockets weighing more than 12 pounds each, mounted a 10-ft bamboo pole, that had a range of nearly half a mile

Eventually, the relentless British defeated Tipu Sultan, seized some of his rockets and shipped them back to Britain for further scrutiny:

These experiences eventually led to the Royal Woolwich Arsenal’s beginning a military rocket R&D program in 1801, their first demonstration of solid-fuel rockets in 1805 and publication of A Concise Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rocket System in 1807 by William Congreve [31], son of the arsenal’s commandant. Congreve rockets were soon systematically used by the British during the Napoleonic Wars and their confrontation with the US during 1812-14. These descendants of Mysore rockets find mention in the Star Spangled Banner.

So there you have it, the story of the rockets in The Star Spangled Banner. A fascinating example of how precisely things had to happen in history to have affected the present and the future, and how a single word in a national anthem could have a story of epic proportions.

Even though I am glad I know this now, I am a little saddened too, for India has forgotten this wonderful part of her history. I remember learning about Tipu Sultan and the Mysore Wars in school, but I have never heard about his rockets and his brigades of rocket men being mentioned. But, the British have kept this history alive, and Tipu’s rockets can be seen on display at the Royal Artillery Museum in London.

PHOTO CREDIT: juvertson | NASA

In a slip-up barely hours after the Shamshabad airport opened for business, a KLM flight from Amsterdam, which was supposed to land at Hyderabad, skipped the airport and flew across the country — first to Delhi, and then to Mumbai.

Imagine the ordeal of the 243 passengers on board!

This reminded me of something similar which happened to me about ten years back. I was on an Indian Airlines flight from Delhi to Ranchi and somehow the pilot got confused and headed to Jamshedpur to land, which is about 132km southeast of Ranchi. On his final approach he realized he was at the wrong place, and quickly aborted the landing and turned towards Ranchi. Everyone familiar with Ranchi, who looked out the window could tell the pilot was in the wrong city. It was only a few days later when we saw the news of the pilot error in the newspaper, was our suspicion confirmed.

Photo by: Mark D. Martin

Tata Nano, a car for the price of a high end laptop, the People’s Car. Now that’s making the impossible possible. Yesterday, Tata unveiled the world’s cheapest car, The Tata Nano, which will begin selling at 100,000 Rupees ($2,500). This is a car that has all the potential to change the lives of the common Indian. This is revolutionary kind of thinking and will definitely produce some interesting cars from competitors in the near future. There are plenty of reviews out there already, and all kinds of opinions about the Nano, and the news has been creating quiet a buzz everywhere.

What really caught my attention was the concern of environmentalists, and their concern that a car this cheap will eventually result in more cars on the road, and hence add more pollution to India’s already polluted cities, plus more clogged up roads. Now, if cars were to sell like cell phones in India, then they are probably right, the future for India might be, worst case, a country of billion cars, and Indian roads may never be the same again.

But, in reality things might not be as bad as the pundits and environmentalists like to predict. For one, we are talking about a country which is already full of highly polluting and less efficient vehicles. If anything, a car this cheap, less polluting, and more efficient, would replace some of the older vehicles, and get them off the streets. The net surge in number of vehicles might not be as bad as people like to think, plus by replacing more polluting vehicles, there could be reduction in pollution. Tata has set the standard with the nano, and the competition will try to out do and better that mark. Which means, look forward to more efficient, and less polluting smaller vehicles for the Indian market.

On the other hand, there are only so many cars Tata can produce, with 250,000 to start with, and then upto one million a year. So, you are not going to see a billion cars on the streets overnight. And if it does get to those number, then the road systems in Indian cities, cannot support that many cars, and so no one will be driving them anyway. Either way environmentalists have nothing to worry about. They should probably spend their time more efficiently getting those big SUV’s off the streets.

The bigger concern is when ox carts get replaced with Tata Nanos. The potential for non polluting and less polluting vehicles being replaced by the Nano, can be considered a bigger concern, and can definitely put more cars on the streets. But, I wouldn’t worry too much, when companies like Tata start thinking of better solutions for the Indian Market, that’s a good sign. Instead of thinking of building a SUV for India, they thought of building the right car for India. That tells me that, the future is sound. When we face higher traffic and polluting problems in the future, we will not only think different to solve those issues, but also find solutions that will work well in India.