'Yun Hi Chala Chal': Swades song soothes Shubhanshu Shukla nerves before lift-off; Lucknow boy takes mango nectar, sweets to space
'Yun Hi Chala Chal Raahi, Kitni Haseen Hai Yeh Duniya...' That philosophical road song from Shahrukh Khan-starrer 'Swades' is what Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla listened to before heading to the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the lift-off on Wednesday.
There is an old tradition at Nasa that when astronauts say goodbye to their families and drive towards the launchpad, they listen to their choice of music. The music soothes the nerves of the astronauts and helps them relax in order to focus on the lift-off.
The ode-to-life song in the Ashutosh Gowarikar film that Shukla chose, coincidentally, centres around a Nasa scientist.
The music playlist also had tracks curated by the rest of the crew: Commander Peggy Whitson (US) picked 'Thunder' by Imagine Dragons, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski (Poland) went with 'Supermonce', a Polish track, and Tibor Kapu (Hungary) listed 'Bvhely', a traditional Hungarian song, as per a post by Axiom Space on X.
The boy from Lucknow, which is famous for its varieties of mango, is carrying mango nectar with him to ISS. While astronauts are usually advised to travel light, Shukla is also carrying some mouth-watering Indian sweets — gajar (carrot) ka halwa, and moong dal halwa — with him to satiate his cravings for home-made food in space.
After the 1999 Kargil War, Lucknow boy Shubhanshu Shukla was inspired to join the IAF. So, he applied for the National Defence Academy (NDA) exam and cleared it.
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He completed his military training and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from NDA in 2005. He was then selected for the flying branch and underwent training at the IAF Academy.
In June 2006, he was commissioned into the fighter stream of IAF as a flying officer. Shukla logged over 2,000 flying hours across a range of aircraft, including the Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier 228, and An-32.
Selected in 2019 for Isro's Gaganyaan mission, Shukla, along with three other selected Indian astronauts, went to Russia in 2020 for basic training at Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. After completing basic training in 2021, Shukla and others returned to India and attended training at Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru. During that time, he completed his Master of Technology degree in aerospace engineering from IISc Bangalore.
Shukla's name as a member of the Gaganyaan team was officially announced on Feb 27, 2024, when PM Narendra Modi announced the names of the astronaut-designates for India's first human space mission at Isro's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
Last year, he was chosen to pilot the Axiom mission 4 to ISS, becoming the first Indian astronaut to do so.
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