Could a 4-year-old girl be a reincarnation of Indian-American astronaut Kalpana Chawla who met her end in the Columbia disaster exactly four years ago?
The question was being hotly debated in view of the little one's assertion that she was Kalpana Chawla.
The manner in which she has recalled certain events related to Kalpana's last flight have baffled all and sundry.
Four-year-old Upasana has begun to draw huge crowds to Nar Mohammadpur village in Bulandshahr district of western Uttar Pradesh, where everyone tends to believe that she could be a reincarnation of Chawla, who perished in the Columbia disaster exactly four years ago.
The little girl who fears the very sight of aircraft had been telling her illiterate parents that she had died in a 'crash' up in the skies.
"She has been telling us ever since she started speaking that her name was Kalpana Chawla and that her father's name was Banarsi Das Chawla, but we could not figure out anything as we had never heard of Kalpana," Upasana's father Raj Kumar told mediapersons .
Raj Kumar who works as a labourer in Pata village of Etawah district, from where the family had come to Bulandshahr to visit relatives, has no clue about space research or spacecraft.
"Yet with Upasana going about echoing her proclamation led us all to believe that she was actually talking about her previous birth," he said.
Upasana was born barely two months after Kalpana's death in the space disaster.
The news of her reincarnation spread like wild fire after her interaction with some local persons in Khurja.
"She claims that the spacecraft was hit by a huge ball of ice that sent it crashing and ended her life," said Upasana's father.
Meanwhile, TV reports said that Kalpana's father has refused to buy the rebirth story.
More from rediff