This is my favourite story and it never fails to impress. It’s an account of the day I put words in the mouth of Potus, the President of The United States!

The year was 2003, and news of the Columbia space shuttle crash was trickling in. In  those heady days of newly discovered 24×7 hrs news, the  channels were going berserk, trying to outdo each other. Their single minded agenda was to reel in more viewers and increase their TRP by adding a new angle to the story.

Since Kalpana Chawla was my senior and my daughter was a student in the same school we went to attend the condolence meeting. When we reached the school we were amazed by the number of media vans parked outside. The real circus was happening within where dozens of newspersons were interviewing anyone who could provide a sound byte. 

An old teacher introduced me as Kalpana’s contemporary and suddenly my value soared. Half a dozen microphones were shoved in my direction and I was asked to recount my time with her. I clarified that since I was two years junior to her and  new in the school I rarely ever interacted with her. They then asked me anything I remembered about her. All I could recall was her hanging from a tyre in the porch of her house in an effort to gain height. Another instance I recounted was how she had offered to make a night sky for a geography exhibition when a class room was turned into a miniature landscape. She and her friend had painstakingly stuck stars on black charts, making various constellations on the ceiling. I added my own observation that on hindsight it seemed that she had always been fascinated by the cosmos. The reporters greedily lapped up this story and I was repeatedly introduced as Kalpana’s friend.  I kept correcting them that I wasn’t a friend and hardly knew her but this tiny detail went unnoticed.

 After the condolence meeting ended I left to see patients in my hospital. A few hours later a correspondent from CNN came looking for me and said he wanted to put me on a live news cast to USA. He wanted me to narrate the night sky story. I was a bit nervous.  I am not good at rehearsed lines. If someone asks me the same question twice I try to recall the exact words I had used earlier which makes me stammer. 

My cold feet slowly warmed up when I reached the venue. I was expecting a big studio with fancy lights and a big production crew. I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved to see that CNN was operating with a tiny three member crew out of a small room in a  Connaught Place hotel.

I was interviewed by Paula Zahn ! After I fumbled through the ‘mandatory’ geography project story she asked me how KC would be remembered. I recounted how she had repeatedly expressed gratitude to her school, her engineering college and even the tiny flying club in her hometown.  She had shared her success and good fortune with her alma mater and had arranged sponsorships for two students to visit NASA every year. And then in a moment of ‘ heightened’ inspiration I blurted, “ Her greatest quality was that when she reached for the stars she kept her feet firmly on the ground.” I could see that I had floored Ms Zahn with this somewhat cheesy comment but it’s impact was to go much further. 

Later in the evening while paying homage to the departed astronauts the then President, Mr George W.  Bush,  used my line, attributing it to KC’s friend.  I was too ecstatic to explain that I wasn’t a friend, just a puny junior. Sometimes the devil is not in the details!

( published in the HIndustan Times on 23/9/2020)