Kalpana’s Journey
Harsh A. Desai

She looks at you from the cover of the latest Amar Chitra Katha comic No. 437 with clear, confident eyes. She is wearing an orange NASA spacesuit. And though there is an American flag just behind her right shoulder, you know that she is an Indian woman and are proud of the fact.

You can imagine her clear brown eyes looking down on our earth from outer space with awe and wonder. You can imagine her floating through outer space and having a whale of a time and you can share her excitement in a small way from your armchair. Her story is truly unbelievable.

Kalpana Chawla was born in Karnal to a businessman and his wife and she seems to have had an unexceptional childhood in a small town. But, she was a girl with determination and was interested in astronomy. The comic traces her humble beginnings from her early years in Karnal to her admission in Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh and then to Arlington Texas to study Aeronautical engineering. She later moved to NASA in Hobston and then onto a space shuttle, not once but twice. The first Indian woman and one of the few women to have gone into space, her amazing story is an inspiration to all Indians.

The 32-page comic, priced at Rs 30, is a part of the Amar Chitra Katha biography series. It has been illustrated in bright colours and the story is narrated in simple words. This is a comic children will thoroughly enjoy and be inspired by. It is also a kind of book that parents will enjoy reading to their kids.

And yet I have a reservation about the book. Chawla’s death in the second Columbia space shuttle is treated abruptly and just when you want to know more, the book is over. The reason perhaps is that they didn’t want to expose young readers to the tragedy and thus avoided giving the details. I wonder whether that is the correct approach.

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