I was coming out of my house taking my two wheeler at 11 am to buy vegetables from the market.
A group of five or six women sitting on the sand under the shade of a tree which was planted by me few years ago, sipping the hot tea from the plastic cups and biting the crispy vadas.
They were the construction workers in a house under construction in front of my house.
These women were asking each other 'whether the woman went to space has returned or not?'
I heard their conversation and thrilled.
I asked them, how do they come to know about the space woman?
'We saw in TV' an immediate reply impulsively came from one of them.
I was glad to notice, how much our information technology has penetrated into the deep profile of our society.
Thanks to the scientific advancement.
I told them that the woman who went to space 196 days ago has returned to earth safely.
'Thank God, we were parying for her to return safely' was the answer I got from them.
How much the name of Sunita Williams, the Indian - American astronaut was popular among the people of India.
We have not met her.
We have onoly seen her in TV.
We have heard about her and her father Deepak Pandya hailed from Gujarat.
Her mother is a Slovenian.
Sunita is married, has a sister Dina and a dog Gorby.
The achievement reached throughout the world.
Everyone was happy and satisfied about Sunita’s greatness.

She had six co-astronauts who were men.
Not much was talked about them, although they were also equally great in successfully completing the space travel.
Since Sunita being a woman of extraordinary energy and stamina, could spaced walked for 29 h 17 min, a world record for a female astronaut.
Another great feat she performed was her own marathon in space for 4h 24 min using a treadmill suspended by gyroscopes to minimize any impact of pounding feet on the space station.
At the same time her sister Dina ran the Boston Marathon on the same day.
What a coincidence!
Sisters performing the marathon run both in Earth and Space on the day is a wonderful thing to remember.
Sunita’s stay in the space station was surmounted by many difficulties.
The space shuttle, Atlantis arrived safely the International Space Station.
The shuttle developed some defects in the thermal protection system and in the heat blanket.
The astronauts repaired the shuttle to the full satisfaction of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US.
Also another setback in the two main computers aboard the station was set right after 48h breakdown.
I do not know how all these things could happen.
The trained astronauts with their brilliant brain could do the job in an excellent manner for the journey back to Earth.
In fact the main mandate of NASA is to bring back the astronauts safely to Earth.
The whole world was waiting and praying.
More so the families of the astronauts were anxious to see them back on Earth.
It was the failure of last mission – Columbia carrying seven astronauts including Kalpana Chawla another Indian American woman reminded all of us to pray more for this crew of Atlantis with Sunita Williams.
The arrival of Atlantis with Sunita and her co-astronauts in Edwards Air Force Base, California early hours of 23 June 2007 gave a great relief to the minds of people of all nations more particularly to Indians.
Indian women are advancing fast in all fields nowadays.
They are not shy as in olden days.
In fact, education to women could change their life.
They are bold enough to challenge anyone in the world.
Large number of them has settled in developed countries, taking training in every field and shining to our satisfaction.
How much we have advance?
Examples of Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams should open our eyes to see our progress.
In every aspect if you look deep, Indian women are talented, intelligent, efficient and above all elegant!
Great future is still waiting for Indian women.
Let us wait and see.
The return to earth by Sunita Williams with her colleagues successfully was greeted not only by the leaders but also people of every walk of life.
‘I’m not sure what I should say. There are so many to thank’ said Sunita who is 41 year-old carrying a record of 195 days in space, the longest for any woman.
She is true, that she has to thank all those who were anxiously waiting for her arrival on Earth.
Finally she did it and created great joy in all our minds.
“You just sort of take what you get. May be, you don’t get the first thing that you want. If you are good at what you do and you try hard some things sort of fall into place.” once Sunita said.
These golden words are the inspiration for all of us.
Let us try hard, things will fall into place.