Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Kalpana Chawla
Reach for the
stars, she said.
And she did
BAJINDER PAL SINGH
‘‘The path from dreams to success does exist. May
you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it,
and the perseverence to follow it. Wishing you a great
journey.’’
— A message from Kalpana Chawla from aboard
space shuttle Columbia, flight STS-107, to students
of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. The
message reached them two days ago.
KALPANA CHAWLA, 42, charted a trajectory
from dreams to success. It came naturally to
the Karnal girl who drew airplanes as a child
and spent long hours staring at passing aircrafts
overhead.
Chawla always said she was proud to be a ‘‘girl
from a small town that had a unique distinction of
having a flying club’’. Last year, when she heard she
was chosen out of 4,000 engineers to be part of the
space mission of STS-107 for the second time, she
wrote to the Chandigarh Administration, asking
them for college memorabilia. Happy to hear from
her, the Administrator, Lt Gen J F R Jacob, consti-
tuted a committee. ‘‘The students and faculty of PEC
and Chandigarh College of Architecture took keen
interest in its preparation,’’ said Professor V.S. Mal-
hotra, her teacher and former head of the aeronau-
tical department, Punjab Engineering College.
A broken wing outside the college put many stu-
dents off from adopting aeronautics as an engineer-
ing career. Not Kalpana. When as a 17-year-old in
1978, she joined the engineering college, Kalpana
was already a trendsetter as the only girl. Her room
was pasted with posters of spacecraft. She said: ‘‘I
did not know why there were so many photographs
as it was not that I imagined myself in them.’’
Her relatives were aghast when she was sent out
of Karnal for studying. They were scandalised when
she opted for higher studies in the US. Moving from
the backwaters in Karnal to Chandigarh had been
enough. And who would marry an overqualified
girl, her relatives reasoned. A masters from Texas in
1984 was followed by a doctorate from Colorado.
CONTINUED ON PAGE
stars, she said.
And she did
BAJINDER PAL SINGH
‘‘The path from dreams to success does exist. May
you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on to it,
and the perseverence to follow it. Wishing you a great
journey.’’
— A message from Kalpana Chawla from aboard
space shuttle Columbia, flight STS-107, to students
of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. The
message reached them two days ago.
KALPANA CHAWLA, 42, charted a trajectory
from dreams to success. It came naturally to
the Karnal girl who drew airplanes as a child
and spent long hours staring at passing aircrafts
overhead.
Chawla always said she was proud to be a ‘‘girl
from a small town that had a unique distinction of
having a flying club’’. Last year, when she heard she
was chosen out of 4,000 engineers to be part of the
space mission of STS-107 for the second time, she
wrote to the Chandigarh Administration, asking
them for college memorabilia. Happy to hear from
her, the Administrator, Lt Gen J F R Jacob, consti-
tuted a committee. ‘‘The students and faculty of PEC
and Chandigarh College of Architecture took keen
interest in its preparation,’’ said Professor V.S. Mal-
hotra, her teacher and former head of the aeronau-
tical department, Punjab Engineering College.
A broken wing outside the college put many stu-
dents off from adopting aeronautics as an engineer-
ing career. Not Kalpana. When as a 17-year-old in
1978, she joined the engineering college, Kalpana
was already a trendsetter as the only girl. Her room
was pasted with posters of spacecraft. She said: ‘‘I
did not know why there were so many photographs
as it was not that I imagined myself in them.’’
Her relatives were aghast when she was sent out
of Karnal for studying. They were scandalised when
she opted for higher studies in the US. Moving from
the backwaters in Karnal to Chandigarh had been
enough. And who would marry an overqualified
girl, her relatives reasoned. A masters from Texas in
1984 was followed by a doctorate from Colorado.
CONTINUED ON PAGE
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