During one of his interactions with people, A P J Abdul Kalam was asked why he did get married. Never one to be offended, Kalam replied I find rocket science much easier to understand than marriage. Most people have given up on understanding marriage, but many are trying more earnestly to understand rocket science, thanks to Kalam and Chandrayaan-3. After Kalam, it is India latest Moon mission that has kindled popular interest in science. Isro scientists are flooded with invitations to not just seminars, but showroom openings and corporate gatherings as well. Suddenly, the rocket scientist is a star. Companies have moved their products from the pipeline to Launchpad boardroom presentations have replaced markets with orbits, growth with propulsion. Not just students, grown-ups with little background of science are thronging planetariums and watching science shows. This newfound euphoria offers some lessons to science teachers Popularise science and let students explore the themes behind the theorems, the romance behind rocket science. I am not sure if we would jump up in such unadulterated joy when a mission lands on, say, Venus or Jupiter. Those missions would be more difficult than Chandrayaan, but Moon has a special place in our hearts. Up and close, the lunar surface is a treacherous place of craters and mounds, dust, heat and cold, but we had Shammi Kapoor sing Chand sa roshan chehra at Sharmila Tagore and Poornima fall for Mohan singing Ilaya nila pozhigirathe. Our science education should tap on such popular missions to dejargonise and democratise science. If our scientists don have the time to move out of their workplaces, we should have storytellers who can take science from labs to lay people. It was here that Kalam was different. Focused on his work, Kalam was also a natural charmer who became the biggest ambassador of science. I believe that because Kalam was a great human being first, a scientist and statesman next. When I was helping rocket scientist S Nambinarayan write his autobiography Ready to Fire, we discussed the competition between scientists led by Kalam who were working on solid propulsion and those like Nambi who were pushing for liquid p During one of his interactions with people, A P J Abdul Kalam was asked why he did get married. Never one to be offended, Kalam replied I find rocket science much easier to understand than marriage. Most people have given up on understanding marriage, but many are trying more earnestly to understand rocket science, thanks to Kalam and Chandrayaan-3. After Kalam, it is India latest Moon mission that has kindled popular interest in science. Isro scientists are flooded with invitations to not just seminars, but showroom openings and corporate gatherings as well. Suddenly, the rocket scientist is a star. Companies have moved their products from the pipeline to Launchpad boardroom presentations have replaced markets with orbits, growth with propulsion. Not just students, grown-ups with little background of science are thronging planetariums and watching science shows. This newfound euphoria offers some lessons to science teachers Popularise science and let students explore the themes behind the theorems, the romance behind rocket science. I am not sure if we would jump up in such unadulterated joy when a mission lands on, say, Venus or Jupiter. Those missions would be more difficult than Chandrayaan, but Moon has a special place in our hearts. Up and close, the lunar surface is a treacherous place of craters and mounds, dust, heat and cold, but we had Shammi Kapoor sing Chand sa roshan chehra at Sharmila Tagore and Poornima fall for Mohan singing Ilaya nila pozhigirathe. Our science education should tap on such popular missions to dejargonise and democratise science. If our scientists don have the time to move out of their workplaces, we should have storytellers who can take science from labs to lay people. It was here that Kalam was different. Focused on his work, Kalam wa