Yogi Berra and the space shuttle

"Déjà vu all over again"

The phrase is perhaps an urban myth, a quote attributed to Yogi Berra, the legendary catcher and manager of the US major league baseball team, the pin striped New York Yankees.

But, I can tell you I echoed that sentiment, malapropism and all, of course only within myself, when I saw the following photograph in today’s (April 28, 2012) The Hindu. A space shuttle sitting on top of a modified Boeing 747.

Whence the feeling of “Déjà vu all over again”? For that I have to take you back to early ‘80s and the first shuttle flight, Columbia. The landing of Columbia was scheduled at Edwards Air Force Base in California, in Mojave Desert. From there, the vehicle was flown back to the Kennedy Space center in Florida, across the North American continent, for getting it ready for the next trip; after all, it was a shuttle. That is when I saw, for the first time, a flying machine carrying another on the outside. I remember how the popular media had sketched any number of doomsday scenarios. But, none came to pass. The photo below may not be from that particular event but it does tell you how Mr. Berra found resonance in me.

Now, that the shuttle program has come to an end, all the vehicles will be dispersed to various museums across the US (NASA doing its selling job to US taxpayers, in a manner of speaking cynically). Perhaps this too has a déjà vu moment, jumping across oceans – spreading of Nehru’s ashes across the Indian landmass (perhaps this too is an urban myth, I am not sure).

So, has the shuttle program truly ended? For this we go to our redoubtable source, Mr. Berra:

“It ain’t over till it’s over”

Raghuram Ekambaram

P.S Mr. Berra was way ahead of his times. Our politicians and celebrities can take help from him in tight situations. It is passé to claim, “I have been misquoted.” How to say it with Berraesque panache?


“I really didn’t say everything I said.”