READING DAY AND READING WEEK:BOOK REVIEW "WINGS OF FIRE"

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.

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’.

Kalam 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.

In the section Creation, Kalam gives a glimpse of his keen eye while training at NASA. He recollects seeing a painting depicting heroism of Tipu Sultan’s army using rockets against the British.

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.

If you want to leave your footprints
On the sands of time
Do not drag your feet

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, Kalam 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. Kalam describes two visionaries Prof. Dhawan and Dr. Brahm Prakash who mentored him during such days.

In the book we learn how Kalam started his career in Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) and was involved in the design of a hovercraft. Later he moved to Indian Space Research which was the brain child of Vikram Sarabhai. In 1963, Kalam went to NASA facility in Maryland(USA) as part of a training program on sounding rocket launching techniques. There he came across a painting which depicted Tipu Sultan’s rocket warfare against the British,

Here, I saw a painting prominently displayed in the reception lobby. It depicted a battle scene with a few rockets flying in the background. A painting with this theme should be the most commonplace thing at a Flight Facility, but the painting caught my eye because the soldiers on the side launching the rockets were not white , but dark-skinned, with the racial features of people found in South Asia.

One day, my curiosity got the better of me, drawing me towards the painting. It turned out to be Tipu Sultan’s army fighting the British. The painting depicted a fact forgotten in Tipu’s own country but commemorated here on the other side of the planet. I was happy to see an Indian glorified by NASA as a hero of warfare rocketry.

The book covers a lot of "behind the scene" information and technical details about India’s satellite and missile program (SLV-3, Prithvi, Agni, Thrisul, Akash and Nag). This might interest technically inclined readers but is sure to put off readers who bought the book to get to know Kalam or to know his principles/ideas. Space and missile programs are huge complex projects and managing them is extremely challenging.

The book is a journey of dreams, hopes, successes and failures. The life of this great personality was none different than the normal person, only thing different was how he perceive the world around him and how he’s willing to go that little extra to achieve his dreams, how he’s willing to sacrifice for common good and how he never forgets who he really is (some qualities common to visionaries and great men like him). This book gives confidence to Indians that ‘we can do and we can do from India’.

It is story of courage, inspiration leadership and motivation. The book tells us how important it is to value the people around us in order to grow as a person. The book talks about the millions of people who have contributed to the life of Mr. Kalam, which tells us that a great personality is just not one person but a collective effort of many.

The book is also the journey of India’s technological advancement, lists how the success and failures were the integral part of the missions. Though there was a lot of hue and cry from the nation about huge money being pumped in for war purposes when half of the nation is below the poverty line. I too thought that such kind of advancement brings no good.

But this book gives a scientist’s point of view and I realized that sometimes it is necessary to solve the puzzle to complete the picture. The hardest battles are those when you are fighting with your own family and indeed the scientists were fighting for a cause for which the nation gave them the least support.

Through this book, Mr. Kalam states that missiles were not build to bring war but to become self reliant, to show the world that one cannot rule over others just because they are superior in warfare. This book is not a story of self praise or personal feat but about a person who had the fire in him to give his dreams wings to fly. Through this book he wants the youth to know that no efforts can go waste, no goals can remain unfulfilled and no life can be ordinary. Each of us needs to realize our potential, give away the feeling of being inferior and fight our own battles in order to fly high up in the sky with our WINGS OF FIRE!!!!!

Through Wings of Fire, we come across some brilliant people who worked behind Indian space research  such as Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Brahm Prakash. The book also contains about 24 photos and I found the ones from the early days of Indian space program very interesting. This alone is worth the price of the book!

One of the things that stands out throughout the book is Kalam’s positive thinking. He held many high ranking positions in various organizations. Yet in the book he rarely mentions anything about lethargy/corruption of bureaucracy or politicians. The secret to his success seems to be his ability to ignore negative things around him. The book also gives a clue to his popularity in India. Kalam is a simple, secular, inspiring humanitarian.

Book details:

Title:                               Wings of Fire
Author:                 APJ Abdul Kalam
Genre:                   Autobiography
ISBN:                              978-81-7371-146-6
Publishers:            Universities Press
Price:                               INR. 275