Veteran Kamini Kaushal, who used to excel playing a soft-cornered mother’s role has been conferred with the Kalpana Chawla Excellence Award by India’s first woman astronaut’s father BL Chawla at a function held recently in Gurgaon by Punjab Engineering College Chandigarh Old Boys Association (PECOBA). Kalpana happens to be an alumnus of the Association. 86 year old Kamini Kaushal, who started her journey in films with Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar in1946, besides playing the female lead in more than two dozen films did play mother of practically all leading men from the 60s to the 80s. In the recent film Chennai Express, the still sweet looking actress played Shah Rukh Khan’s grandmother. In television too, Kaushal worked in the highly popular serial Shanno Ki Shaadi in which she played the role of Bebe, the grandmother of Shanno, the main protagonist played by Divya Dutta. Later the grand old lady presented Pecoba awards to music composer Lovely Sharma, singer, compare Seema Verma, audiographer Santosh Sharma and organizer Rakesh Kumar besides outstanding PEC Engineers.