Kalpana
Chawla
(1961-2003)
Kalpana
Chawla
Who does not Want to reach out to
the stars?
A
small girl form Karnal, Punjab, always wanted to be a voyager of the Milky Way.
She used to dreamer that some day she would ride a rocket to the stars. Her
motto was that you got to have a dream if want to have your dream come true.
She used to say, “Have a dream and follow it to the end,’’
One dey her dream came true. Was
invited by NASA, the US space organisation. They asked her to join a team going
out space.
Kalpana Chawla did not wait to think.
She accepted the invitation at once.
Kalpana was invited not because she
was pretty, not because she was a woman,not beceuse she was of indian origin.
She was invited because she had ‘the
right stuff’ and ‘a strong will’ to go out in the bloe yonder. She was a
competnt scientist who could carry out useful experiments and acquire useful
knowledge of space. It was odvious that
kalpana was cast in the mould of
trailblazers like tenzing and Hillary.
She was asked to prepare for her first
trip into space. To cross the ‘Final Frontier’. She had worked hard from the
day she was a school girl, all the time waiting for this day.
Mr. Banarasi Dass Chawla, Kalpana’s
fathe, had to flee pankistan during partition. He and his
family settled in punjab and set up atyre business. That is where kalpana was
born and ewnt to school. “kalpana was born in our family but she had a mind of
her own.” says her mother, She always talked of
flying, even made mode model aeroplanes, for recreation.
Kalpana’s father encouraged her to join the krnal
Flying clud,where Kalpana learned flying
and extended her love for aviation. At school her extra curricular activies
included projects on the solar system and spaca exploration. After passing her
H.S.C. examinatino with flying colours, She was advised to opt for medicine.
But she chose engineering, instead. At the Punjab Engineering because aeronautical
engineeing was more of a men’s domain.
She declined the advice and became the college’s firs aeronautical engineer.
That paved her way to a scholarship
at an American university, where Kalpana studied for a doctorate in aerospace
engineering.
This is where her ambition to be an
astronaut was born. She applied herself diligently towards that goal. After
earning her Ph.D kalpana joined NASA. There she mastered various aspects of
space travel. As result she was invited to be a member of a group that was
undergoing training for actual space travel. She underwent rigorous training on
a simulator. She became amission specialist on the crew who went into space
towards the end of 1998.that was Kalpana,s firt foray into space.
Besides being an ace astronaut,
Kalpana was also a good human being. She
remembered people’s birthdays and aent cards and flowers. She enjoyed good
food; she would tuck in samosa with imli chutney at parties given by Indian
friends. She enjoyed good things in life. She was a good things in life. She
was a good bharatnatyam dancer, listened to Indian and western music. In
summer, while growing up in India, she often slept in the open courtyard under
the stars. She gazwd dreamily at the milky way and once in a while saw a shooting
stars.
Truly, that is what kalpana chawla
was – a shooting star. At the height of her brilliant career, she met a fiery
death, while returning from her second space foray in January 2003, Kalpana
along with her six-space-mates on the Columbia space shuttle was destroyed by a
cruel fate.
Kalpana’s journey has ended but along the way she had
fun and thrills. Her journey itself was her .destination. she lived as if she
knew the whole universe was watching her. Praises for her achievements were
tinged with sadness. The
whole world mourned her death. But in
karnal and delhi, the sadness was the
deepest and the mourning the most poignant.
Kalpana will remain a source of
inspiration for young aviators.
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