Women Are A Gift

Women are truly a gift. They are sensitive from within, yet can choose to be strong. Even if they are having a bad day, they can do the extreme opposite just so that everyone around them is happy.

A woman is blessed with distinct and exceptional characteristics and most of all she has the privilege to play a remarkable role of being a mother, all of which has been bestowed upon her by our loving Father.

Every woman deserves to know her true worth. It is of great significance that she can be capable enough to find herself and the ideal way is through prayer and the relationship she shares with God.

The word of God will not only guide her to know her in a better form but also gives her the endeavors to lead a prosperous life.

Women are not designed by mistake or accident but because God willed them to be created and bestowed on them unique graces and gifts.

Elizabeth Arden wrote,” Every woman has the right to be beautiful “. But I say every woman is BEAUTIFUL.

What every woman needs to truly understand is that there is so much more to them than how the world sees them. They are unique, inspiring, beguiling, innovative and filled with so much of fortitude,

So don’t shy away from the world, embrace the true you. Be your idea of beautiful. Cut all those trivial strings. And finally, do what makes you happy because you deserve the best.

Happy Women’s Day!

You can also visit our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3zd8k4c4c8 for a video on why Women Are A Gift

Teach Your Husband to Listen to you.

 

Being a woman, you need your needs better than anyone else, you can be your husband’s most effective teacher. He needs to learn from you why it’s important to listen to you and how to listen.

First, explain why it’s important to you that he spends time listening with his undivided attention. The woman called “virtuous” was so called because she had convictions and influence.convictions bring influence. When you’re sold on something, like the importance of a better relationship, it will show through your facial expressions. Let him know that when he doesn’t listen to you attentively, it makes you feel unimportant and unappreciated. Explain that this, in turn, decreases your desire to meet his needs. Make it clear, however, that the opposite is also true. When he consistently listens to you with attentiveness, you feel more important and have a much stronger desire to meet his needs with greater creativity. You may have to tell him these things repeatedly before they sink in. But each time the opportunity arises, you have another chance to stimulate his curiosity.

In addition to explaining Why you need his undivided attention, you must show him how to give it. Discuss the non-verbal means of communication with him. As he learns to understand your feelings by looking at your eyes and facial expressions, your communication and your relationship will deepen. Gently remind him that his partial listening doesn’t do any good, that you don’t want to compare with work, sports, and TV.

Be careful not let your times of communication deteriorate into an argument. Use your sensitivity to learn how to side-step issues, words, or mannerisms that ignite an argument. Some women concede that the only way they get their husband’s undivided attention which builds a healthy relationship. Let your communication be as encouraging and delightful as possible. learning to gain your husband’s undivided attention on a consistent basis will be a major undertaking. However, gaining his attention is not an end in itself. It is meant to develop several beautiful facets to your relationship. One of those facets, helping your husband become aware of your emotional and romantic needs, is discussed in the Book “The Joy of Committed Love”.

 

 

The Meaning of Suffering

 

Whenever one is confronted with an inescapable unavoidable situation, whenever one has to face a fate which cannot be changed, e.g., an incurable disease such as an inoperable cancer; just then one is given a last chance to actualize the highest-value, to fulfill the deepest meaning, the meaning of suffering. For what matters above all is the attitude we take towards suffering, the attitude in which we take our suffering upon ourselves.
Let me cite a clear-cut example: Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of the wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything.’ but instead confronted him with the question,”What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died and your wife would have had to survive you’ he said, “for her, this would have been terrible. She would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared, and it was you who have spared her this suffering- but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Of course, this was no therapy in the proper sense since, first, his despair was no disease; and second, I could not change his fate, I could not revive his wife. But that moment I did succeed in changing his attitude and his unalterable fate inasmuch as from that time on he could at least see a meaning in his suffering. It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.
It goes without saying that suffering would not have a meaning unless it were absolutely necessary; e.g. Cancer which can be cured by surgery must not be shouldered by the patient as though it were his cross. This would be masochism rather than heroism. But if a doctor can neither heal the disease nor bring relief to the patient by easing his pain, he should enlist the patient’s capacity to fulfill the meaning of his suffering. Traditional psychotherapy has aimed at restoring one’s capacity to work and to enjoy life; logotherapy includes these, yet goes further by having the patient regain his capacity to suffer, if need be, thereby finding meaning even in suffering.

In this context Edith Weisskopf-Joelson, professor of psychology at Purdue University, contends, in her article on logotherapy,’ that “our current mental-hygiene philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of mal-adjustment Such a value system might be responsible for the far that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.” And in another paper’ she expresses the hope that logotherapy “mat help counteract certain unhealthy trends in the present:- day culture of the United States, where the incur=: sufferer is given very little opportunity to be pro…: his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather degrading so that ‘he is not only unhappy but ashamed of being unhappy.
There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one’s work or to enjoy one’s what never can be ruled out is the unavoidability suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely,  life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it this meaning literally to the end. In other words, life’s meaning is an unconditional one for it even includes the potential meaning of suffering.

Let me recall that which was perhaps the deepest experience I had in the concentration camp. The odds of surviving the camp were no more than I to 20, as zar easily be verified by exact statistics. It did not even seem possible, let alone probable, that the manuscript my first book which I had hidden in my coat when l arrived at Auschwitz, would ever be rescued. Thus, I had to undergo and to overcome the loss of my spiritual And now it seemed as if nothing and no one would s,..7.vive me; neither a physical nor a spiritual child of my own! So I found myself confronted with the question whether under such circumstances my life was ultimately void of any meaning.
Not yet did I notice that an answer to this question with which I was wrestling so passionately was already n store for me, and that soon thereafter this answer would be given to me. This was the case when I had to surrender my clothes and in turn, inherited the worn-out rags of an inmate who had already been sent to the gas chamber immediately after his arrival at the Auschwitz railway station. Instead of the many pages of my manuscript, I found in a pocket of the newly acquired coat one single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer book, containing the main Jewish prayer, Shema Yisrael. How should I have interpreted such a ‘coincidence’ other than as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper?

A bit later, I remember, it seemed to me that I would die in the near future. In this critical situation, however, my concern was different from that of most of my comrades. Their question was, ” Will we survive the camp? For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning.” The question which beset me was,”Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance- as whether one escapes or not- ultimately would not be worth living at all.”

This excerpt is taken from the Book “Man’s Search for meaning.”

 

6 Type of Men in Society

Eduard Spranger, an inspiring psychologist, describes man’s basic dispositions and attitudes that give right direction to live and unlock his potential to go about his day in a state of powerful flow.Spranger lists the following value types:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each type calls for the next in dynamic harmony contains positive and healthy orientation, but none of them exists in an unmixed state, there is always the danger of betraying their values.

 

This excerpt is taken from the Book “Be Smart Be You!”

 

 

Work Unfolds,Ways to Creativity.

Work, manual, moral and intellectual, is creative and is a major part of life.When work is a pleasure, life is joyful, healthy and balanced.”Thank God, every morning, when you get up that you have something to do that day that must be done, whether you like it or not.Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and contentment and a hundred virtues.”

1: Calm, steady and efficient work is the mark of true personality.

 

2: Work helps build a solid foundation to advance one’s goals and future prospects.It presses us on and we can’t help going forward.

 

3:  Work done grudgingly is servitude.

     Work done willingly is service.

     Work done lovingly is a blessing.

 

4: Nothing great has been ever achieved or lifted you up higher without confidence and faith in yourself.

 

5: Work reaffirms self-satisfaction that you can support yourself.The sense of independence, joy, and dignity grows with the work well done.Enjoy what you are doing.

 

6:Work makes one feel important by the very means of making a contribution.Unless one is the recipient of charity; he ought to be a contributor towards bettering society and advancing social progress.

 

7: You are what you feel.Prospective friends and supporters will react to you accordingly.take time to be friendly, it is the route to happiness.

 

This excerpt is taken from the Book “Live Life! Give Life!”.  Available Now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Need of Relaxation

We are living in an age of hurry, haste, tension, speed and frantic competition.We hurl ourselves through life at a breathless pace, trying to keep up with the people who are trying to keep up with the Joneses.But is it really worth it? To know the true joy of work one must know how to be intense and relaxed at the same time.these days young professionals in a mad pursuit of material success have forgotten How to relax without being lax, to excel at work, many others, at play; but few know how to induce playfulness into work, and some fruitful work into leisure.

This is why an occasional break from our daily routine is necessary in our lives.At least once in a while, it is necessary to drop all calculations, jettison all blueprints for self-improvement and simply be yourself.This helps your inner well-being.Such breaks help the enormous expansion and enrichment of one’s being.Guard well your spare moments.They are like uncut diamonds.Discard them and their value and worth will never be known.Improve them, refine them and perfect them and they will become the brightest gems in a life of positivity.

A distinguished explorer who spent a couple of years among the savages of the upper Amazon once attempted a forced march through the jungle.The party made extraordinary progress for the first two days, but on the third morning, when it was time to start, he found all the natives sitting on leave.”They are waiting,” the chief of the natives explained to the explorer; “they cannot move further until their souls leave caught up with their bodies.”

I can think of no better illustration of our own plight today.Is there no way of letting our souls, so to say, catch up with our bodies? Man does not live by work alone.There is such a thing as ‘sacred leisure’, the cultivation of which is now unfortunately neglected.Leisure is the womb of all fruitful creativity.Aristotle said,”The aim of education is the wise use of leisure.” Creative and positive use if leisure is a real test of culture, refinement, and civilization.Only in an environment of affluence and leisure floats the intangible dust of creative ideas, the raw material of fashioning fine literary and artistic creations.A colony of busy ants or bees will never create a Parthenon or a Taj Mahal.Leisure is required not only for creativity but also to savor the simple celebrates the beauty of the simple pleasure of life:

This excerpt is taken from the Book: The Wisdom & Power of Positive Living

A Second HoneyMoon.

For happily married couples retirement can be a second honeymoon if it has been carefully considered an& planned. Besides, this time married happiness can be much closer and lasts so much longer because husband and wife can be so much together.

Of course, both must be in loving communion of and affection if retirement is to be a success. Both have to surrender some small pleasure of life, having money to spend. Both have to give more of m understanding and help for an easier life together

When her husband had achieved his long-retirement, Isabelle S. Billings instructed him as follows, When you fix oatmeal, be sure to soak the pan in water immediately after removing the oatmeal otherwise you could have a messy clean-up job. very basic and one of your first kitchen lessons.’

‘Let me take a note of that,’ he said, jotting down in e notebook. Later she managed to look at this o herself. It said simply, ‘Forget about oatmeal.’
It is plain silly to set in advance the division of work by a mathematical and inflexible rule, while other can offer pleasant surprises of .unexpected in running the house. Nevertheless, a wife whose and is retiring from his job, and who will therefore faced with the prospect of having him underfoot in the house all day and every day, would be wise to.draw some ground rules. If she does not do so, she is asking for trouble.
A writer in the New Orleans Times-Picayune suggested some guiding principles, which sound fairly sensible.

As a preamble, the wife might say to her husband, with great tenderness and understanding:— I am glad you have come home in retirement, my dear. As soon as we get acquainted with each other we are going to have a splendid time.

However, it would be well, at the very beginning of our sunset years together, to agree on certain matters of mutual concern, so that the peace and harmony of our household may be preserved.

1. Stay out of my kitchen.

2. Draw up a chart showing which half of the household chores you intend to take over.

3. Start cleaning up your ashtrays and other messes you make during the daytime, I’ll still take care of your evening and weekend messes.

4. Prepare to give me two afternoons a week to be with my women friends.

5. Have your eyeglasses checked, then subscribe to a second newspaper, because we’re going to have a lot of conversational time from here on and news will help fill it.

6. Tell Social Security to start sending my cheque in my own name. It’s the first money I’ve had in my own right in 43 years and I want to see what it feels like.
7. Read your life insurance policies and let me know what in the world they say, then go, make a will, is, if you want your meals on time.

8. Be informed that when retirement letdown hits in about a month you will have ten days more—to feel sorry for yourself, after which you’ll get on with your new life.

The Above excerpt is taken from the Book Grow Old Gracefully

Pranayama

Pranayama The word pranayama is a Sanskrit compound of the words Prana, or “life force,” and Yama, meaning “Control”. The word suggests our need to govern the life force within us. Pranayama accomplishes this by breath control. On an average, each of us breathes 23,000 times a day. We take about 600 million breaths during a lifetime. You can live without food for as long as forty days and without water for seven. You can survive only six to eight minutes without air. Breath is seen as a gift of the Spirit in many traditions. Hindus believe that each breath, when engaged meditatively, is an invocation of the divine Spirit that yokes us to the numinous or the divine in the universe.

Pranayama is an essential component of the practice of yoga for centring the consciousness. Prana (life energy) is the gift of the universe that sustains us in this lifetime. Upon our death, our life energy merges with the cosmic, or collective, energy. At this point of transition, the Atman (individual consciousness) merges with the Brahman (divine consciousness). We return to the Source.

While the most immediate manifestation of prana is breath, ancient Indian texts classify five different types of vital energy, or pranavayus—prana, apana, samana, prana, udana, and vyana. These are specific manifestations of the life energy or vital wind (p neuma). Prana controls the breathing in the thoracic region. Apana moves in the lower abdomen and controls the elimination of urine, semen, and feces. Samana regulates the gastric processes aiding digestion. Udana operates in the throat (the pharynx and larynx) and regulates the vocal cords and the intake of food and air. Vyana, generally associated with the brain area, is a body-wide system of energy distribution or metabolism that distributes energy derived from food and breath through the circulatory system, while removing toxins and metabolic waste. In pranayama, inhalation and the apanavayu activate the pranavayu by exhalation.Vyana acts as mediator of prana and apana by distributing energy and removing toxic metabolites The visible expression of this complex vital life energy in your consciousness is the movement of your lu in respiration.

Normally, prana is in constant association consciousness, which is usually driven by desire. If you can steady your prana (breath), you can centre your consciousness and free it from desire. This freedom permits you to move from sexual and other ego desires to the spiritual realm of consciousness. When your energy body is centred, it steadies all the other koshas, or layers of consciousness, including the physical, emotional, and intellectual bodies. This allows you to move into your bliss body, close to your soul and Spirit—the Atman and the Brahman/ the Immanent and the Transcendent.

Hindu tradition has perfected the art of prana, breathing with intention, technique, and purpose through regulating inhalation (puraka), exhalation (rechaka), and retention of breath (kumbhaka). Puraka infuses energy and oxygen into your body. Rechaka eliminates toxins. Kumbhaka is the energy-and toxin-management system of the prana. Pranayama must only be practised in conjunction with asana, or optimal body postures, so as not to impede the flow of energy. It gives you a valuable tool to master the energy body and to centre your consciousness, steadying all the other koshas or sheaths of your consciousness and aligning you to your bliss body, Atman (soul), and the flow of the universe (Spirit).

Pranayama also offers pragmatic dividends. For instance, when your consciousness is steadied during moderate, guided breath retention, your heart rate slows, enhancing your calming, cooling parasympathetic nervous system as well as resting your heart muscle. This increases longevity. Pranayama can also alleviate pain in your physical body.

Once you are trained in basic pranayama techniques, you must map out your problems by circling the points on your body that are in pain. Next, establish a quiet, sacred meditative environment in a study or bedroom where you can be comfortable. Lie down on a yoga mat or a carpet, or sit up in a comfortable chair with back support. Then establish the rhythm of breath meditation and focus on the problem area of your body. While mentally focusing on this part of your body, continue your breath meditation or pranayama exercise.
With each breath, you will experience a gradual diminution of pain and discomfort. Complete ten breaths while maintaining a passive focus on the problem area or painful part of your body. You will experience a 10 percent reduction in discomfort with every breath you take.

After ten breaths, take five more. The object of your pain or discomfort will become more relaxed with each breath. At the end of the exercise, stay calm and passive for a few more breaths before gradually returning to normal, daily consciousness. To maintain the effect of pranayama on your physical body, continue this practice daily for thirty minutes.

This excerpt is taken from the Book “The Spiritual Paradox of Addiction.”

 

Are You the Manipulating Type?

Often we control our loved ones without even realizing that we are denying them freedom.Here are three classic types of manipulators who can squeeze the blood out of relationships in a hurry:

The Take-Charge Manipulator: This is the person who must be smarter and stronger than you to be happy with you.Answer the following questions to determine whether you fir:

A: Do we usually end up going to the restaurant or movie I prefer?

B: Do I enjoy correcting factual errors in other people’s conversations?

C: Do I use humour to put down my friends?

D: Do I have to know more about a topic than others to feel comfortable discussing it?

If your answer are largely positive, it may be that you are quite insecure.Strange as it may seem, the person who always tries to look superior may have neurotic feelings of inadequacy.The best friendships do not require that anyone keep the upper hand.Rather, there is a mutuality in which either partner is free to be a week at times without fearing that the other will get ‘one up”.

When C.S.Lewis was a young student at Oxford, he made a number of lifelong friends, among them Nevill Coghill and Owen Barfield.Several in that close circle became authors, and they would gather regularly over them all, and he turned out increasingly successful books at increasingly shorter intervals.Yet he seemed to appreciate more than ever the old familiar friends.Owen Barfield said: “I never recall a single remark, a single word or silence, a single look… which would go to suggest that he felt his opinion was entitled to more respect than that of old friends… I wonder how many famous men there have been of whom this could truthfully be said.”

If you are secure, you never have to jockey for control or lord it over your friends, and you know, as Sarah Teasdale once observed, that “no one worth possessing can be quite possessed.”

The Poor-Me manipulator: This person is the direct opposite of the take-charge type, manipulating by appearing weak.

A slightly overweight wife sits in my office with still another set of symptoms, which she calls “anxiety attacks”.She has been in and out of the hospital, moving from one disaster to another, always in trouble, always an emotional mess.

Yet she is very intelligent, and she seems in some ways to have plenty of ego strength.Why, then, this long parade of calamities? Why is she never able to take charge of her life?

Suddenly it dawns on me.Why didn’t I see it sooner? The great tragedy of her childhood had been the day her father left the family for another woman.Her mother was an enterprising type, managed to raise the children well, and eventually remarried.But years later, the next generation’s relationships are still governed by that event.

Remembering what happened to her mother, my friend has avoided at all costs the appearance of strength and independence.And, indeed, it seems to work.When she is having an anxiety attack or physical illnesses, her husband hovers over her and is very solicitous.So she puts herself through amazing suffering, convinced that as long as she is in trouble her husband will stay.

Of course, it would be unfair to accuse my friend of deliberately faking sickness in order to hang on her husband.She is genuinely sick most of the time, and her pain is excruciating.The mechanism is largely unconscious, but it is a powerful form of manipulation just the same.

Such excessive dependency will backfire eventually.Stephanie and Linda have been causal acquaintances since childhood.”We run into each other a couple of times a year,” Stephanie says.”Actually, we have a lot of interests in common, and I can tell that Linda is lonely, but she clutches at you so.And she talks about her troubles for three hours straight.There’s no way I can stand that.I avoid her like the plague.”

The Need-to-Be-Needed Manipulator: If you are not the clutching type, do not congratulate yourself too quickly on your independence until you have inquired: Am I on the other end of such friendships and encourage dependence in others?

Here, for instance, is a mother of two married daughters.She does not work outside the home, and she is bored.The housework is done by 10 A.M.One of the few events that relieves her boredom is a call from one of her daughters in trouble-even with a minor problem.Then the engine within suddenly comes alive and adrenaline shoots through her system.She feels needed again! She rushes over to the daughter’s house, takes charge, and it’s like the old days again.

But it is a dangerous setup, for it she wishes her children to need her that badly, she is likely to foster a sick dependence and keep them as little girls.

This excerpt is taken from the Book: The Friendship Factor 

 

 

 

 

Kalpana Chawla-Wonder Woman of India.

Outer space, or simply just space, is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth.It vacuum containing a low density of particles.there is no firm boundary where space begins.However the Karman line, at an altitude of 100km above sea level conventionally used as the start of outer space in space treaties.

Humans began the physical exploration of space during the 20th century with the advent of high altitude balloon flights, followed by manned rocket launches.The Earth orbit was first achieved by Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union in 1961 and unmanned spacecraft have since reached all of the known planets in the solar system.Due to the high cost of getting into space, manned spaceflight has been limited to low Earth orbit and the Moon.In August 2012, Voyager I become the first man-made spacecraft to enter interstellar space.Outer space represents a challenging environment for human exploration because of the dual hazards of vacuum and radiation.

 

Kalpana Chawla faced this huge challenge and became the first Indian Woman to fly into space.the name Kalpana is Sanskrit for “Idea” or “Imagination”.Kalpana’s father, Banarsi Lal Chawla was then a leading industrialist of Karnal and owned a Tyre factory.Her mother Sanyogita Chawla, a housewife, expected a boy as her last child, when Kalpana was born on 1 July 1961 at Karnal in the  State of Haryana in India.The Chawla family were refugees from Pakistan who had settled in Karnal after the partition of India in 1974.

kalpana’s parents had been through great hardships and were in dire straits during Partition but had struggled to pull themselves up and were able to provide good education to Kalpana and her two siblings.She completed her earlier schooling at Tagore Baal Niketan Senior Secondary School, Karnal and her Bachelor of Engineering degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh in 1982.The same year she moved to the United States where she obtained a Master of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas, Arlington in 1984.Determined to become an astronaut even in the face of the Challenger disaster, Chawla went on to earn a second Master in 1986 and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in the year 1988 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In 1988 Kalpana began her career working at the NASA Ames Research Centre as Vice President of Overset Methods, Inc. where she did Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research on Vertical/Short Take-off and Landing concept.All this seemed highly technical for a simple Indian mall town girl.Chawla also held a Certificated Flight Instructor rating for airplanes, gliders and Commercial Pilot Licenses for single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and gliders.

A peep into her personal like tells us that Kalpana married Frenchman Jean-Pierre Harrison, a flying instructor in 1983 and she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 1991.Chawla and her husband lived adjacent to Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.Chawla was a strict vegetarian, in observance of her Hindu faith.

On her mission, she carried a white silk banner as part of a worldwide campaign to honor teachers, as well as nearly two dozen CD’s, including ones by Abida Parveen, Yehudi Menuhin, Ravi Shankar, and Deep Purple.She went to her first rock concert, a Deep Purple show, in 2001 with her husband.”Kalpana is not necessarily a rock music aficionado,’ her husband said of a Deep Purple show they had attended together, but(she) nevertheless characterized the show as a ‘spiritual experience.’ She enjoyed bird watching, backpacking, hiking, flying, and reading.Her elder sister Sunita Chaudhary and her sister-in-law, Anjali Chawla too are ardent bird watchers in Delhi.Her brother Sanjay is a businessman.

Kalpana enjoyed flying aerobatics and tail-wheel airplanes.She enjoyed nature in all its glory; she was passionate about music and reading. “Kalpana, or K.C to her friends, was admired personally for her extraordinary kindness and technically for her striving for perfection,” said a friend.”She had a terrific sense of humor and loved flying small airplanes with her husband and loved flying in space.Flying was her passion.Chawla was a motivated person who made an impression on others.Despite her fame, she was truly a down to earth person! She had a great bonding with her classmates from the Tagore school and was highly respectful of her teachers.Even after becoming a famous astronaut, she diligently kept in touch with some of her closest friends to the end of her life.”

Chawla applied fro the NASA Astronaut Corps.She joined the Corps in March 1995 and was selected for her first flight in 1996.She spoke the following words while travelling in the weightlessness of space, “You are just your intelligence.”She had travelled 10.67 million km, as many as 252 times around the Earth.

Her first space mission began on 19 November 1997 as part of the six-astronaut crew that flew the Space Shuttle Columbia flight STS 87.Chawla was the first Indian-born woman and the second Indian person to fly in space, following cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma who flew in 1984 on the Soyuz T-11.On her first mission, Chawla travelled over 10.4 million miles in 252 orbits of the earth, logging more than 372 hours in space.During STS-87, she was responsible for deploying the Spartan Satellite which malfunctioned, necessitating a spacewalk by Winston Scott and Takao Doi to capture Chawla by identifying errors in software interface and the defined procedures of flight crew and ground control.After the completion of STS-87 post-flight activities, Chawla was assigned to technical positions in the astronaut office to work on the space station; her performance was recognized with a special award from her peers.

In the year 2000, she was selected for her second flight as part of the crew os STS-107.This mission was repeatedly delayed due to scheduling conflicts and technical problems such as the July 2002 discovery of cracks in the shuttle engine flow liners.On 16 January 2003, Chawla finally returned to space abroad Columbia on the ill-fated STS-107 mission, Chawla’s responsibilities included the microgravity experiment, for which the crew conducted nearly 80 experiments studying earth and space science, advanced technology development, and astronaut health and safety.She first flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator.

On 1st February 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.The Space Shuttle disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members, shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission, STS-107.Kalpana Chawla was posthumously awarded: Congressional Space Medal of Honor, NASA Space Flight Medal, and NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

Today India has dedicated many memories and places of importance which has been named after Kalpana Chawla, a wonder woman.

This excerpt is taken from the Book “Wonder Women of India” by Jeanette Pinto.Order Now.!