Kuljeet Singh
As we all know today 15th of October is the birthday of Sir A PJ Abdul Kalam and on this great, I would try to highlight few points from his autobiography book ‘Wings of Fire’. It is sure that with the help of this book we can easily understand life-history and contribution of the great son of Mother India Dr A P J Abdul Kalam.
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (A P J Abdul Kalam) was one of India’s greatest scientists. He was an Aerospace engineer, professor, and chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology. On top of this, he also served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. During his term as President, he was popularly known as the People’s President. He was responsible for the development of India’s first satellite launch vehicle, the SLV-3. Kalam is popularly known as the Missile Man of India for developing ballistic missiles and space rocket technology. Kalam also played a pivotal role in India’s Pokhran-II nuclear test in 1998, the first since India’s initial nuclear test in 1974. He also received honorary doctorates from thirty universities and the country’s three highest civilian honors – Padma Bhushan (1981), Padma Vibhushan (1990), and Bharat Ratna (1997).
Wings of Fire: A P J Abdul Kalam introduces us to his early life in Rameswaram where he was born and raised in a secure middle-class Tamil family. He proceeds to describe the communal harmony in Rameswaram and the stable atmosphere for healthy discussion of spiritual matters. Hailing from a predominantly Muslim locality, Kalam learned respect for other faiths from his parents. During Kalam’s early life, his close relatives encouraged Kalam to excel in studies and would talk about the discoveries of literature and science beyond Rameswaram. Inspired to fulfill his dreams, he left his home to attend Schwartz High School in Ramanathapuram Kalam throws light on the time he got selected at Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) for engineering when admission fees were expensive. His elder sister stood by him and helped him financially which deeply moved Kalam to study hard for a scholarship. At MIT, he dreamed to fly an aircraft and hence chose aeronautical engineering. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam sends a message to the future engineering students that ‘when they choose their specialization, the essential point to consider is whether the choice articulates their inner feelings and aspirations’. He was determined to join either the Air Force or a job at Directorate of Technical Development and Production, DTD&P (Air) at the Ministry of Defence. However, Kalam was not successful in joining the Indian Air Force and could not fulfill his dream to fly. Frustrated, Kalam turned to Swami Sivananda who taught him to accept his destiny and go ahead with life. He learned that this was not in his destiny. He got accepted as a Senior Scientific Assistant at DTD&P (Air). Here, Kalam faced his first failure. His indigenous Hovercraft ‘Nandi’ was shelved by a new ministry which favored imported hovercrafts. Kalam learned the harsh truth that certain events may be out of control in life. However, ‘Nandi’ had created interest by then and as if destiny came knocking, Kalam was called for an interview at Indian Committee for Space Research for the post of Rocket Engineer. At this interview, he met Prof Sarabhai, father of the Indian space program. He learned many valuable management and leadership lessons from Prof. Sarabhai. At an early stage of his career, Kalam trusted that leadership with the free exchange of views was more desirable than giving directions. Kalam also learned that leaders exist at every level. Kalam throws light on his work schedule when he started leading projects. On entering his office he would first clean the table, prioritize papers for immediate action & remove everything else from sight. This memorable line has aged well which tells us to take action now when we are interested in doing a good thing and want to be remembered for it. Interestingly, He preferred a daring attitude with persistence to perfection. He favored allowing mistakes as a learning process as they are inevitable but generally manageable. He advocated building own education, skills and keeping up-to-date. Kalam narrates his experience when he was faced with three deaths in his family. He faced failure when the first flight trial of Indian SLV-3 crashed for which Kalam took responsibility as a leader. He describes two visionaries Prof Dhawan and Dr Brahm Prakash who mentored him during such days. Kalam received the Padma Bhushan after SLV-3 was successfully launched. He then moved to rocketry at the Defence Research and Development Organization and successfully introduced the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme for the development of five missiles namely Prithvi, Trishul, Akash, Nag and Agni. On the successful launch of India’s missile program, Kalam received the Padma Vibhushan. Despite repeated failures faced, Kalam always maintained that failures are seeds of further learning and emphatically believed that India can be a technological leader. There is no limit for describing A P J Abdul Kalam he is unexplainable but here I have only tried to summarizing words of his book Wings of Fire. At last one of the greatest scientists left us on July 27, 2015 at an age of 83 but he was always alive in the heart of everybody.
