Kalpana Chawla was born in India's Karnal district of Haryana. Her parents had seen great hardships and were in dire straits during partition but had struggled to pull themselves up. However, they were able to provide good education to Kalpana and her two siblings.

In everything that Kalpana did, she broke stereotypes. She was the only girl at that time to join the aeronautical engineering stream at the Punjab Engineering College. She fought and overcame opposition from her parents and migrated to USA for further studies. Here, she joined the University of Texas to pursue her Masters and later, University of Boulder, Colorado for her doctorate. This was admirable, since few children at such a young age are so clear-minded about their ambitions. Furthermore, even fewer have the will to pursue them with such single-minded dedication that Kalpana did.

Global citizen

Kalpana's sights were so completely focused on her goals that even her small town trappings were no constraint for ...more