What does India look like from space? Sunita Williams answers with a special mention of Himalayas

Back in 1984, Rakesh Sharma, India’s first astronaut, looked down at his homeland from space and summed it up with a line from Muhammad Iqbal’s poem, “Saare Jahaan Se Accha” — when then prime minister Indira Gandhi asked him in Hindi: “How does India look from space?”. Fast forward four decades, and Sunita Williams, an Indian-origin NASA astronaut who recently returned from 286 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), was asked s similar question.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, are interviewed at Johnson Space Center on Monday in Houston. (AP)

On Monday, when a journalist asked Sunita Williams how India looked from up there, she didn’t miss a beat. “Indian is amazing, just amazing,” she said while describing the breathtaking view of the Himalayas from space.

“Every time we went over the Himalayas, we got incredible pictures. It happened like a ripple and flows down into India," added Sunita Williams, who, along with Butch Wilmore, held their first news conference since returning to Earth.