May 05, 2007 11:34 AM
27806 Views
Wings of Fire takes you to another world ! This is a book
written on a serious note. Surprisingly, I got to know the complete name of our
president, after reading this book and now I’ve learnt it forever. President of India **Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen (APJ) Abdul Kalam **!
Dr. Kalam is
a great man indeed, he is Humble, brilliant, visionary and inspirational
and above all, he is the God father of Indian satellite launch vehicle and
missile systems. In this book he
explains his experience as a child, a student, a member and then a leader. All
these stages are so very vividly explained that one tends to feel what he must
have felt at those points of time. He gives plenty of insight into the art of project management as he experienced it, when
you have to deal with many brilliant, highly motivated people. The book is not
about glorifying successful events in a man's history, rather it’s a tour of
life of a person who tried and succeeded in achieving noble goals. He’s often
called as *Missile Man of India* for his work and is considered a leading
progressive mentor, innovator and visionary in India.
The book is divided into four
sections: **Orientation, Creation, Propitiation and Contemplation**, devoted
roughly to the first 32 years (1931-1963), the next 17 years (1963-1980),
another 10 years (1981-1991), and beyond.
*~~ Orientation– An introduction ~~** The book opens his
childhood , where he is Born on 15th October 1931 at
Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, studied at Schwartz High School in Ramanathapuram.
After graduating in science from St. Joseph's College in Tiruchi, he did his
DMIT in Aeronautical Engineering at the MIT, Madras, during 1954-57. He
graduated in aeronautical engineering, he had his long-standing dream of
flying, as two alternative opportunities for employment. One was the job at
Directorate of Technical Development and Production(DTD&P) of the Ministry
of Defence and another was a career in the Indian Air Force. Initially he
didn’t succeed in either of these options. But later however Kalam received an
appointment letter from DTD&P. he served DTD&P till 1962.
*~~Creation** **From 1963-80~~ **Nearly half
of the book goes to the "Creation" phase. Here, one sees Kalam
managing and inspiring large scale developmental projects on rocket technology. He served the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in
various capacities. Here Kalam initiated Fibre Reinforced Plastics(FRP)
activities, then after a stint with the aerodynamics and design group, he
joined the satellite launch vehicle team at Thumba, near Trivandram and soon
became Project Director for SLV-3. The book, specially this stage throws some
lights on Dr. Kalam’s leadership qualities, project management, rocket
technology and the history of Indian space program.
*~~**** Propitiation 1981-91~~
*in this stage Dr. kalam enters defense stage of his career. Dr. kalam was honored
with a Padma Bhushan in 1981. In 1982, as Director of DRDO, Dr. Kalam was
entrusted with the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme(IGMDP), he
was entrusted with five major tasks which were scheduled to be completed in a
time frame of only 10 years. His profile includes **Nag, Prithvi, Akash ,
Trishul and Agni**. These missiles went up, more or less on schedule. However
the successful launching of 'Agni' in 1989, is remarkable in Indian history! If
creation stage has a benchmark of SLV-3, this stage has Agni to talk about!
*~~And beyond~~ **Here Dr. kalam
enters a life where has is honored with many awards and responsibilities. I find
that he is very humble human being , as he doesn’t takes the credit for all the
success , He gives credit to the many great visionaries
who prepared him for life, especially Professors Sarabhai, Dhawan and Brahm
Prakash. Now Dr. Kalam is the honorable President of India (11th president
who took office of president on
July 25, 2002.) and doing his
job dutifully. I’ll credit Dr. Kalam with much more. He has inspired the young
India! yes ! he’s not only my ideal but ideal many other thousands. It’s one of
most inspiring book you can come across. Although ( having a commerce
background) I had problem in understanding the technical terms and complexities
in the course of my reading, yet I kept reading on and on ! “Time once lost, no amount of gold can buy it
back “- this little yet most powerful learning has changed my life ! I came across these
words in photo section of this book !
Dr. Kalam has received a host of awards both in India and
abroad. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1981, Padma Vibhushan 1990 and the
Bharat Ratna in 1997. And is so well deserved for these honors ! He is of the view that we should work
wholeheartedly to make India a developed nation by 2020
For me this has
been one of the most daring attempt on ms. I apologize for making even
slightest error or omission of a material fact. But I want to confess , writing
on him has been a great experience for me tooo along with Arun Tiwari
who writes Dr. APJ Kalam’s biography.
