'Landing delay added an element of thrill'

There was much celebration in Indian-American astronaut Sunita William’s ancestral village on Saturday. "We have been on tenterhooks since June 14, when Sunita was slated to return. School children and elders have been praying constantly," said AP Prajapati, principal of CP Gajjar High school in the village.
In Hyderabad, avid shuttle watchers stayed glued to their television sets till the early hours of morning watching the live touch down of Atlantis and then the repeats, followed by more repeats, trying to gather every bit of information on the shuttle’s safe return.
The delay and thwarted landing attempts were hardly a dampener to the much awaited return, Hyderabadi shuttle lovers said. For 29-year-old Andre Unger, the delay in landing added not just anticipation but even an element of thrill. "It was a thriller finish," he gushed.
At Vitthal Pandya’s (Sunita’s uncle) house in Ahmedabad, the doors were open for all — friends, family, even casual bystanders — as a crowd gathered to watch Sunita’s safe return. By the time Atlantis touched down and the 78-year-old Pandya jumped in joy and did a jig, the celebrations had already begun outside. In no time a big crowd had gathered outside the house, bursting crackers, playing the dhol and distributing sweets.
Though nobody was saying it aloud, memories of the Kalpana Chawla tragedy were playing on everybody’s mind. "Whenever a channel beamed the Columbia tragedy, I’d hit the remote," says Singh. "I didn’t want any negative vibes around the Atlantis return."
While the image of Sunita Williams smiling and floating will stay etched in the minds of Indians across the country, three-and-a-half-year-old Romsha Singh has one question for the astronaut: Why doesn’t she comb her hair?
(Inputs by Kumar Manish)