While many people were busy unwrapping presents on Christmas day, I was busy being blown away by my home country which I thought I knew so well. One of the things that blew me away the farthest was ISRO. ISRO is the Indian Space Research Organization, and it was formed on August 15, 1969. It was mostly made to design launch vehicles, satellites, earth observation devices, and a communication program. ISRO was started by Sir Vikram Sarabhai and formed with the help of the government of India. 

ISRO was founded on sustaining and augmenting space technology for national development and pursuing science and planetary exploration. So, at this point, you are probably wondering: ok sure, that’s cool, but what does that have to do with you? Let me explain. When I went to India, I went to live with the grandparents on my mom’s side. My mom’s dad also happened to have worked at ISRO. My grandfather took me and my uncle into the ISRO museum, and since he was an ex-ISRO employee, we got our very own tour guide! 

Walking through the museum, I could see all of the advances that India made that I had absolutely never known of, even though I live in India. I questioned how much I really knew about India and asked my grandfather if there was anything else that I didn’t know. Turns out that there was a lot that I didn’t know, like that India already found a way to get satellites to Mars in a quick and efficient way, that my grandfather built a whole building in ISRO to create communication satellites, and that he also designed the gates that lead into ISRO. 

Sadly, that was also my last day in India, but on my way to the airport, my grandfather gave me the most special gift of all: a model of a real satellite that was launched under my grandfather’s control in 2005. It is no longer active in space, but it was until 2015 when space researchers at India brought it back down to Earth. On my way back to America, I bumped into a really friendly lady who was really sweet and really fun to talk to. From that lady, I realized another thing that I totally forgot about India: the fact that anywhere you go, the people are always so friendly and will easily strike up a conversation with you, even if you don’t know them. 

By Tvesha Patel ‘27, Middle School Editor

27tpatel@montroseschool.org