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Journalism of Courage
Hours before he became only the second Indian to go to space, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla had a brief conversation with his parents, who, like any parent on their child’s big day, were a mix of excitement and anxiousness.
His father, Shambhu, and mother, Asha, woke up around 2:30 am, counting down the hours until liftoff. “We spoke to Shubhanshu around 4:00 am, and he said, ‘Papa kar ke aata hoon. Aap chinta na karo’ (Papa, I’ll go and get it done. You don’t worry),” Shambhu, a retired government official, told The Indian Express.
The parents and close relatives watched the launch at a special event organised by the City Montessori School, where Shubhanshu studied.
“We have planned a group prayer at home for the success of his 14-day mission. Ishwar ki kripa bani rehni chahiye (God’s grace should always be with him),” Shambhu said.
Shubhanshu’s elder sister, Suchi, said they spoke on the phone “briefly, for about 30 seconds”. “He said he was feeling excited, happy, and healthy. We gave him our best wishes for his journey,” she said.
Shubhanshu is the second Indian in history to travel to space after Rakesh Shukla in 1984 and the first Indian astronaut to travel to the International Space Station.
Though I am eagerly looking forward to his return after a successful mission, I also know that even after landing on Earth, it will take a while before he gets to us,” his mother said.
Born in Lucknow in 1985, Shukla graduated from the National Defence Academy and was commissioned into the Indian Air Force in 2006. With over 2,000 hours of flight experience on elite combat aircraft, he was selected in 2019 for India’s Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme and later chosen as the pilot for the Axiom Mission 4.
(With PTI inputs)
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