MY TRIP IS A CATAPULT FOR INDIA'S SPACE MISSION

Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla speaks about his pathbreaking journey into space and his plans ahead

- BY RAJ CHENGAPPA

There is something about Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla that reminds you of cricketer Rahul Dravid at his peak. It's not just the handsome, clean-shaven, wavy-haired and weathered look. Or the compact physique, unflappable demeanour and air of quiet assurance. It is also their grit, determination and the rare quality to shoulder huge responsibilities with beguiling nonchalance. Both men have soared to great heights—one figuratively, the other literally—yet they exude the same incredible lightness of being.

When Shukla entered a lift at a Mumbai hotel where he was to address a recent India Today Conclave, a lady inside was glued to her phone. When she did look up and saw Shukla, her eyes lit up, jaw dropped and she promptly requested a selfie. When he gracefully obliged, she told him, “You are our real superhero.”

Shukla truly is, though he is only now getting used to the adulation. It was his wife, Kam-na, who first told him about the waves his space odyssey was making when he called her from the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting 400 km above Earth this June-July. With no internet or any other media in space, Shukla was hard-focused on the objectives of the mission, unaware of the outpouring of admiration back home.

Shux, as he is fondly called, is grateful that he was chosen to represent his 1.4 billion compatriots, becoming only the second Indian to orbit Earth. This was 41 years after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma spent a week aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in April 1984. However, Shukla created a record of his own—the first Indian astronaut to live and work aboard the ISS, the orbiting laboratory on which he spent 18 days.