Wings of Fire _ Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Wings of Fire (1999) is the autobiography of the Missile Man of India and the former President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. It was written by him and Arun Tiwari. In the autobiography Kalam examines his
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Wings of Fire _ Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
Wings of Fire (1999) is the autobiography of the Missile Man of India and
the former President of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. It was written by him
and Arun Tiwari.
[1]
In the autobiography Kalam examines his early life, effort hardship
fortitude, luck and chance that eventually led him to lead Indian space
research nuclear and missile programs. Kalam started his career after
graduating from Aerospace engineering at Madras Institute of Technology
at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and was assigned to build
a hovercraft prototype. Later he moved to ISRO and helped establish
the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and pioneered the first space launch-
vehicle program During the 1990s and early 2000 Kalam moved to
the DRDO to lead the Indian nuclear weapons program with particular
successes in thermonuclear weapons development culminating in the
operation Smiling Buddha and an ICBM Agni.
The autobiography first published in English, has so far been translated and
published in 14 languages
including Hindi Assamese
[2] Bengali Telugu
[3] Tamil Kannada Malayalam,
Odia Marathi Gujarati and Kashmiri.[4] Outside of the major Indian
languages, Wings of Fire was translated into Chinese (titled Huo Yi by Ji
Peng), and into French,English by various translato
He was born on 15 October 1931, the son of a little educated boat owner in
Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. His father was also imam of the small mosque in
Rameswaram. He had an unparalleled career as a defence scientist,
culminating in the highest civilian award of India, Bharat Ratna. As chief of
the country’s defence research and development programmer Kalam
demonstrated a great, great potential for dynamics and innovations that
existed in a seemingly moribund research establishment. This is the story of
Kalam’s own rise from obscurity and his personal and professional
struggles, as well as the story of AGNI, TRISHUL, and NAG missiles that have
become household names in India and that have raised the nation to the
level of a missile power of international reckoning. Since independence,
India has sought in various ways, self-realization, adulation, and success.
APJ Abdul Kalam ,the book begins with the childhood of Kalam’s life. In the
beginning, he introduces us to his family and tries to familiarize us with his
birthplace Rameswaram. In childhood he was a great admirer of his father
Jainulabdeen. He was a man of great wisdom and kindness, and Pakshi
Lakshmana Sastry, a close friend of his father and the head priest of the
Rameswaram Temple. He had an ideal helpmate in his mother Ashiamma.
He was also influenced by his close friend Ahmed Jalaluddin; he was about
15 years older than Kalam. With his friend, he talked about spiritual matters.
This shows that he believed in spirituality and also believed in God or
Khuda. He always went to Lord Shiva’s temple with his friends.
In the later part of the opening chapters he introduces his cousin
Samsuddin his school teachers and all the people who have felt any
difference amongst them. Here he expresses one event which happened in
his school days a new teacher at his school could not stomach a Hindu
Priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. In accordance with our social ranking
as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the backbench. I felt
very sad, and so did my parents about the incident. Lakshmana Sastry
summoned the teacher, and in our presence, told the teacher that he should
not spread the poison of social inequality and communal intolerance in the
minds of innocent children.
He completed his school education in the Rameswaram Elementary School
in Rameswaram and later on studied at Schwartz high school in
Ramanathapuram. In 1950 he joined St. Joseph’s College Trichi, to study for
the B.Sc degree course when he realized that physics was not his subject.
Then, at last he applied to Madras Institute of Technology. He or his family
could not afford to spend that much money on the course at Madras Institute
of Technology. Zohara his sister stood with him. When he had a specific
branch of aeronautical engineering, the goal was very clear in his mind at
that time. And he tried to communicate with different kinds of people. At
Madras Institute of Technology their teachers shaped his thoughts Sponder
Kal Pandalai and Narasingalu Rao. Each of them had carried distinct
personalities. Last year of Madras Institute of Technology was a year of
transition and had a great impact on his later life. From Madras Institute of
Technology he went out to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited [HAL]at
Bangalore as a trainer. There he worked on engine overhauling as part of a
team. He had trained in radial engine-cum- drum operations. After the
completion of engineering, he had applied for the Air Force and Directorate
of Technical Development and Production –DTP and PC (Air) of the Ministry
of Defence. But he was not selected in Air Force because he failed to pass the
physical fitness standards. Later he was appointed in DTP and PC (Air) as
senior scientific Assistant on a basic salary only of Rs. 250 per month in
1950. He had to create opportunities on his own. At this stage he covered 32
eventful years of his life when he was just on the threshold of his career after
graduation.
The section ‘Creation’ traverses seven chapters from chapters four to
chapter ten; and covers Kalam’s life and work for 17 years from the year
1963 until 1980. It begins with his recollection of works at the Langley
Research Center, NASA in Houston, Virginia U.S. and at other facilities in
the US, including the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast
of the United States, Virginia. At a NASA facility, he remembers to have seen
a painting, prominently displayed in the lobby. The painting depicted a
battle scene with a rocket flying in the background. On closer examination,
he found that the painting depicted Tipu Sultan’s army fighting the British.
Kalam felt overjoyed to see an Indian glorified in NASA as a hero of rocketry
warfare.
His association with the Satellite Launch Vehicle and related projects are
vividly presented in the section ‘Creation’. During the period covered under
‘Creation’, Kalam, in the year 1976, lost his father who lived up to 102 years
of age. Kalam took the bereavement with courage and remembered these
words written on the death of William Butler Yeats by his friend Auden, and
his father:
Earth receive an honoured guest
William Yeats is laid to rest:
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
A pleasant surprise came in the form of conferment of Padma Bhushan on
Republic Day 1981
Kalam had a strong belief that it is the children of a country who are
responsible for shaping its future. In this book, too, he tries his best through
his writings and quotations to motivate the young readers to believe in the
nation, and take charge to build a glorious future for one and all.
We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to
this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness. To live only for
some unknown future is superficial. It is like climbing a mountain to reach
the peak without experiencing its sides.
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