Kalpana Chawla was born on 17th March 1962 in Karnal, Haryana in a conservative family. Her parents Banarasilal Chawla and Sanjyoti Chawla came to India from Pakistan during the partition. Kalpana was their fourth and youngest child. When she started going to school, she was not formally named. At home, everyone called her Montu. When her elder sister took her to school, they asked her name, we said that we hadn’t named her yet.
