Kalpana Chawla was the first woman of Indian descent to fly to space. She was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. As my family watched the news, my dad exclaimed how brave she must be. 10-year old me didn’t know what it took to be an astronaut. But for several years since that day, when I was asked, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ I said I wanted to be an astronaut.

Growing up, ‘beta, bade bankar kya banoge?’ (child, what do you want to be when you grow up?) was how uncles and aunties made small talk. What you do is who you become is what this question implies. Your answers were judgement on your parents’ ambitions. Indian ambition can be binary. Being a doctor or engineer comes first, everything else will never be good enough. If you pass your board exams and score greater than ninety percent, you can dream in science. Anything below, your dreams have a business or humanities flavour. You prepare for exams with the grim awareness that they allow you to determine the surface area of your dreams.

My dad, born in a small village, was sent to work in Mumbai when he was 10. He finished high school in a night school where he went after a day’s work. My mother had to drop out in grade 9 and work in a farm because her parents believed women didn’t need to study. This made both my parents extremely dedicated to my education. My brothers and I studied in a school whose main USP was that it was run by missionaries so we would eventually speak “good english”. My mother would read the textbooks before the beginning of every grade so she would be able to help me. My dad would call from work on the day of my results and either congratulate or console me. We knew our parents didn’t have much money and education was our only way out. Luckily, we were good at school.

By the time I was 13, the ambition of being an astronaut had morphed into one of being a journalist. I would watch the news with my dad every night and the thought of speaking the truth to the country appealed to my newly found rebellious spirit. When I googled how to be a journalist, an article in a youth magazine started with the fact that it didn’t pay well. That put an end to the dream immediately.

Both my brothers studied engineering so by the age of 15, I wanted to be an engineer too. A few days before the results of my 10th grade, my dad politely suggested to me that I could explore other things. My brothers were still studying and a third child pursuing an engineering education would be hard on my family. I remember this conversation not with remorse or anger but warmth. My dad was trying his best and I know how hard this conversation must have been on him. I did the next best thing - got a cheap but prestigious degree in finance.