Kalpana Chawla

Born into a conservative family in a provincial town in Haryana, Kalpana Chawla dreamt of the stars. And through sheer hard work, indomitable intelligence and immense faith in herself, she became the first PBI – Indian woman to travel to space, and even more remarkably, to travel twice. In this well-researched biography, journalist Anil Padmanabhan talks to people who knew her— family and friends at Karnal, and colleagues at NASA—to produce a moving portrait of a woman whose life was a shining affirmation that if you have a dream, no matter how hard it is, you can achieve it.