Student casts Kalpana Chawla in bronze

A fine-arts student in Chennai has sculpted a life-size bronze sculpture of India-born American astronaut, Kalpana Chawla.

The sculpture will be exhibited for public viewing on February 1, the day Kalpana Chawla and six others perished in the Columbia Space Shuttle tragedy last year.

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"The composition is a life size sculpture of Kalpana Chawla [five-feet four-inches] sporting a space suit and standing on top of a 14-feet model of the Columbia Space Shuttle, extending her right hand towards the heavens and plucking a star," Shihan Hussain told reporters.

Hussain, a third-year student of Government College of Fine Arts, said he was moved by the visuals of the disintegration of the Shuttle on television.
 
Reshma Sharma, a student of a Karate school run by Hussain, won an award for bravery instituted by the Tamil Nadu government in Chawla's memory and donated its cash component for the project.

Hussain has appealed to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to provide a suitable location for the statue.