A television channel contest made him the globally well-known face in a single night by accolading him the first Indian space tourist after winning the contest, result of which declared on Sunday.
Hardik Gaijar participated in the ‘Bingo Bindaas Go to Space Contest’ aired on a television channel organised by the UTV channel ‘Bindaas’ was one of the many contestants, but after winning the contest was the sole lucky one to go on a space tour along with NASA astronauts and scientists.
Dream comes true for this 21-year-old science graduate from Ahmedabad, who believes God’s grace is essential with hard labour to achieve success.
The contest commenced with simply filling up a form and auditions in all the state capitals. It was based on four personality character called 4 Fs — frank, fun, freedom and fearless, said Hardik. Out of many contestants only seven finalists were selected to go through to the subsequent rounds of stage performance.
Although Hardik has triumphed several trophies at college and university for participating and winning in events like mimicry, acting, debates, song and dance, but this is no doubt the highest honour he could ever have envisaged.
He will now have to go through a six-month training programme with NASA and then have to ride on board a NASA spacecraft. Having experience of 300-hours of space flying, John Herrington will command the spacecraft XP.
But the contest was not so easy to become the first Indian space tourist as it demanded gut, wit, general knowledge and ability to adapt to different and difficult situation.
All the seven finalists were called to a Mumbai studio where they went through group discussions followed by medical check ups and one-on-one sessions with the judges. Subsequently the competition elevated from tough to tougher with the questions on general knowledge, space and basic intelligence,” said Hardik.
In the initial round of contest when he was asked why he want to go to space, he replied in a funny but a genuine query “It’s because I wanted to know how one responds to nature’s call in space.”
Presence of mind, forthright, optimum communication skills were some of the essential characteristics that a participant should had for winning the contest, he added.
The other rounds included ‘crazy TV show’ in which he had to imitate a soap opera character and mimicry — the participants were given only a few seconds to prepare. The ‘Black Hole’ round comprised a question and answer session on space related issues, with only three contestants reaching this stage.
Astonished with the result Hardik is still at loss of words, said, “I have no words to express myself, may be my expressions can.”
His sister Amita said, "We are all excited and happy. Its great that he will go into space."
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