Kalpana would simply introduce herself with, "Hi, I am KC."
She was known to be simple and down-to-earth to her friends and family. A private person, she rarely told anybody what she did. Dilip Patel, owner of Clear Lake Grocers, a Indian provision store in her neighbourhood, remembers that though Kalpana used to shop at his store, he realised only much later that she was an astronaut.
At home she was a completely different person, bubbling with life. Despite her busy schedule she found time to cook. Patel remembers Kalpana as someone who hardly wore make-up, wore simple T-shirts, ate vegetarian food at inexpensive restaurants and drove an economy car.
With her sisters Deepa and Sunita a few days after her return from her first space flight in 1997
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Photo: Courtesy Kalpana Chawla's family