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arjun
February 10th, 2003, 10:55 AM
CONTINUATION OF PART 1 & 2.....
Meanwhile, his children were growing up, and proving to be intelligent. In fact, Chawla saw nothing special about Kalpana, in that respect -- eldest daughter Sunita is a gold medallist from Punjab University. Chawla by then was leading a hectic life, travelling extensively within India and outside, visiting his offices around India and attending tyre exhibitions in Europe and the US. Son Sanjay joined the Karnal flying school, and Kalpana, engineering classes. Ironically, by then Chawla was so busy he was unaware his youngest daughter had opted for aeronautical engineering -- of no use to the owner of a flourishing tyre business. "I thought my son and Kalpana would join me in the business," Chawla recalls. During a break from studies, Kalpana accompanied her brother to flight school, but the authorities demanded she get the written consent of her guardian. Chawla refused consent. As Sunita remembers it, Sanjay was to give Kalpana some valuable advice: "Everyone fights their own battles." Chawla was in the US when Kalpana learnt that she had topped Punjab University in the engineering finals, and was offered a job in her own college. But she had already begun applying to several American universities, and was accepted by the University of Texas for a master's in aeronautical engineering. Her father was away and in the male-dominated household, no one else could take a decision. So Kalpana went back to Punjab Engineering College and took up a teaching job. "I returned after two months and reached Karnal late one evening," Chawla recalls. "Kalpana was supposed to be home, but she wasn't. I asked about her. She is in Chandigarh, I was told. And then, someone said, anyway why are you asking? You don't have time for her." It triggered a family revolt, with his wife, whom Chawla calls “liberal and advanced” and the three elder children ganging up on behalf of their baby of the household. "I asked them what she was doing in Chandigarh. They said, why don't you go and find out? "Early next morning, on August 26, Chawla reached Kalpana's hostel in Chandigarh, but she wasn't there. So he went to the college to visit the principal, whom he knew. "Chawla, you have only money, nothing else," the principal said, and told the astonished father about how brilliant Kalpana was, and that time was running out if she was to get into a US college. Chawla and the principal walked over to where Kalpana was taking classes. "She was writing on the blackboard, with her back to the class. After a while, she turned, wiping the chalk dust off her hands, and as she turned, she saw me.“ She walked up to me in tears and said, Papa, you have destroyed my career. You never have time for me. "The date was August 26 -- and the last date for admission to Texas was the 31st of that month. Kalpana had no passport, no visa, no tickets, nothing. Chawla cried, tears of genuine distress. And through his tears he asked his daughter, "Do you want to go to the US? ""Yes. I will go on my own money," Kalpana replied. "You can do that, but I can fund you, as well," Chawla said. "Anyway, now I can only go next year," his dejected daughter said. "I have no passport, no visa, nothing. "If his life had taught him one thing, it was to never give up. Do you want to go this year, Chawla asked his daughter. Yes, Kalpana said. "Then come with me," he said, telling her to resign from her job that instant.Kalpana was reluctant, fearing that her father would force her to join Super Tyres. "She thought I was trying to trick her into coming back to Karnal, and once there, I wouldn't let her leave," Chawla recalls. Pulling every string he knew, drawing on all his accumulated goodwill, Chawla got his daughter's passport the same day. A day later, the visa was organised. On August 28, Kalpana, accompanied by brother Sanjay, boarded a British Airways flight at midnight. The story was to take another twist, when the flight was first delayed, then cancelled. The Chawla family, which had gone to see Kalpana off, was in tears. But Chawla, even then, did not know the meaning of failure. He began calling friends in the US, and finally arranged for Kalpana to be admitted behind schedule -- in fact, the university even organised a pickup for Kalpana and her brother from the airport. Shortly before Kalpana took off on her ill-fated last flight her father, now deeply into religion, philosophized about his youngest daughter's achievements. "Good things happen in families where good people are born," he said. He recalled how, when his father Lala Labhamal was around 45 years old and still struggling to establish himself after the trauma of Partition, he met a guru and became his disciple. He built a matth in Karnal and ran it till he was 85. He died in 1997 -- the same year that Kalpana took off on her maiden space sojourn. Nirmal Kutiya continues to be run by his disciples, providing succour to Karnal's poor. "My mother was old and weak, but she would work several hours with my father, preparing rotis for the poor," Chawla says. When she died, over 10,000 people -- many of whom had eaten the food she had so lovingly prepared -- turned up for her funeral. The family tradition of serving society is now being carried on by Chawla's younger brother, Amrit Chand Chawla. The industrialist from Mumbai has left his factory to managers and spends his time in Karnal, where he runs a well-furnished old age home for some 160 people, and a school where around 2000 poor children are provided education and basic necessities free. He also provides some 700 poor families a monthly allowance to meet their needs. Meanwhile, a second generation was growing up -- and taking inspiration from Kalpana's odyssey from Karnal to outer space. Megha, a standard five student, told this correspondent shortly before Kalpana took off on what was to be her last voyage, that she wanted to be an astronaut like her aunt. Till the evening of Saturday, January 31, the story was pure Horatio Alger -- a man who survived untold horrors and went on to make a fortune; and his daughter who, against the odds, went on to make her name in one of the most challenging of careers. Today, that daughter's life, her achievements, ended in a fireball that destroyed her spacecraft. And left behind, by that explosion, is an old man who, finally, finds a tragedy too great for even his innate stoicism to withstand.
- END

urmiladuhan
February 10th, 2003, 07:33 PM
Thankyou for posting such a nice article.

akdabas
February 10th, 2003, 08:22 PM
Very Nice Article.

shokeen123
February 10th, 2003, 09:22 PM
Wonderful story...

sanjaychhikara
February 10th, 2003, 11:03 PM
Touching!!!

scsheorayan
February 11th, 2003, 06:51 AM
Great story and great family. Wish there were more like them. God give them strength to bear the loss.

raj2rif
February 17th, 2003, 11:56 AM
Dear Mr. Arjun Rana,
Thanks a lot for posting this article.

arjun
February 19th, 2003, 07:45 PM
dear all... thanks for the appreciative response.