Astronaut Sunita Williams meets Kalpana Chawla's mother, sister in Delhi

New Delhi: A warm embrace and a whiff of nostalgia marked the meeting between veteran astronaut Sunita Williams and late Kalpana Chawla's 90-year-old mother in Delhi on Tuesday.

India-born American astronaut Chawla was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere in February 2003.

She was the first woman of Indian origin to go to space and her death was deeply grieved in India as well.

On Tuesday, Williams, 60, took part in an interactive session, 'Eyes on the Stars, Feet on the Ground', held at the American Center here.

As the nearly hour-long event ended, the astronaut, wearing a trademark deep blue space overalls and sporting a pair of space-themed canvas shoes, stepped off the dais and reached out to Chawla's mother, Sanyogita Chawla, who was sitting in the front row inside the auditorium, and offered her a warm hug.

The meeting between them rekindled their old memories, and Williams expressed her desire to continue to stay in touch before departing.

She also met Kalpana Chawla's sister, Deepa, who accompanied her mother at the event.

Williams, currently visiting India, is set to participate in the ninth edition of the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) starting January 22, organisers had announced late December.

A former US Navy captain, Williams was born to a Gujarati father, Deepak Pandya, hailing from Jhulasan in Mehsana district, and a Slovenian mother, Ursuline Bonnie Pandya, on September 19, 1965, in Euclid, Ohio, in the US.

In her brief opening remarks, she also said that coming back to India felt akin to a homecoming, as it is the country where her father was born.

Later, Chawla's mother interacted with PTI on the sidelines of the event and said, "She (Williams) is like a family member".

After the Columbia disaster, "she used to come to our home for three months", staying from morning till night, regularly, and offering comfort to "our family in grief", the 90-year-old said.

Williams and Chawla used to encourage each other as astronauts to grow further in their shared profession, she reminisced.

Recalling her daughter's life, Chawla told PTI, "She had brought her own treasure. She taught us so much. What can we say?" Sanyogita Chawla said she supported her daughter fully in pursuing her dreams.

"She (Kalpana) used to say, 'Humanity is the only religion', and she never took any other name. When we used to ask her, what is your religion? She would say, 'My religion is work'," a proud mother recalled with a deep sense of loss of her daughter.