It's been twenty minutes since the flight has landed, and Ahmedabad is getting restless. A herd of cops -- a few dozen, yet definitely outnumbered -- are swarming through the crowd, trying vainly to keep the photographers at bay. Television reporters fix their hair, rehearsing welcome lines and absurdly premature how-do-you-find-India questions for their soundbytes.

And then the noise, the roar, gets louder. Some feet arch higher still, while others attempt to scurry in the direction of the cameras. There! One spots a waving palm, and then there is tremendous applause. Staying perched two feet above the action doesn't help one bit, as the raging scrum of the cameras eclipses Sunita completely. Between shouting policemen there is a raised garland and a second later, an invisible astronaut wearing a black t-shirt is whisked away.

Image: Yashoda Rawal waits in the car for Sunita to arrive. Yashoda's husband Dinesh is Sunita's cousin and Deepak Pandya's nephew and one of the organisers of Sunita's busy Gujarat trip. He is a Congress Party politician in Ahmedabad and a functionary of the Ahmedabad Board of Education.