Remembering KC

The safe landing of space shuttle Discovery brings back the memory of a landing that wasn't safe. In fact, it wasn't a landing at all.

The Jan 13, 2003 special issue of India Today had a picture on its covers with the words ‘American Astronaut Kalpana Chawla’ written on the lower-left, the theme of the issue, ‘The Global Indians, doing us proud’.

Almost around six-and-a-half-years ago, we (at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh) were introduced to Kalpana ‘Global Indian’ Chawla by Prof. Gurdial Singh saying, “These are the very benches where she sat and attended lectures, lets see how far can you go.’ “How far can one go than the space itself?” was, may be, the passing thought.

That was a year after she became the first Indian women to ‘rocket into space on a NASA fact finding mission on microgravity’. Quoting from India today, “In the 16 day trip during which disconnected bubbles of water were caught for taking a cosmic shower, Chawla traveled 6.5 million miles, made 252 orbits of the earth and logged close to 400 hours in space”.

Soon after she came back from her first trip to the stars, she sent back to her alma mater a photograph of the entire crew personally signed by each crew member. This photograph even today is on the walls in the admin block at PEC. Everyone waiting to see the principal looks at the photograph outside his office. “To the teachers, students and staff of Punjab Engineering College”, says the caption she wrote.

When her second flight was announced some time early this year, the students of Aeronautical Engineering Department sent her a letter with letters from Governor of Punjab and others. “You do us proud”, was the headline of the article describing the letter the next day in a local newspaper in Chandigarh.

Cut to a few years later...

Saturday, 1st Feb, 2003, about 7:00 a.m. IST: Seeing her photograph on the top of Times of India, I told my friend, “I heard she’d be visiting our college sometime this year, may be during the convocation”. She was scheduled to land that day after a 16 day long trip in the NASA space shuttle Columbia that took off on the 16th Jan.

Saturday, 1st Feb, 2003 about 8:00 p.m. IST: We watched with gross shock and disbelief a bright streak of light on the Texan sky, something the newsflash called the “Crashing Space Shuttle Columbia”. “First time in the history of NASA has a space shuttle crashed while landing” said the voice behind the screen.

But with that first time, we also lost the First Indian woman in space, but with that first time, we also lost the first Indian to go to space twice, but with that first time we also lost the ‘First among the stars’ as India Today called her.

“All Indians must be immensely proud of her”, said a voice on CNN. Seeing the TV channels this seemed true.

I remember KC, American Astronaut, who attained eternity, literally among the stars, with these words...

“…after partition my family was left without possessions but we learnt you couldn’t lose by working hard.”

We're working hard, KC Ma'am. We won't lose. Discovery did land safely.