Finally, I decided to Break The Inertia of not writing and to start with, I have chosen India's Missile Man, People's President and a True world citizen.
Bharataratna Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam dedicating his autobiography Wings of Fire to his mother once wrote : We will meet you again on the great Judgement Day, My Mother. On 27th, July 2015 at the age of 85 this scientist teacher drew his last breath while giving a guest lecture at IIM Shillong. And the great soul met his mother Ashiamma in the heaven leaving all of us in the agony. Although Dr. Kalam left us materially, his ideas on Vision 2020, Developed India, PURA(Providing Urban Amenities to Rural Areas) still have strong significance. Dr. Kalam's writings,speeches and quotes continue to inspire many, he had framed specific oaths to various sections of the society and especially the oath given to youth saying "donot let your winged days be spent in vain" will continue to motivate and drive us.
This post is a tiny attempt by me to spread his words of wisdom taken from his writings.
Dr. Kalam was pursuing 2nd B.Tech Aeronautical Engineering from MIT (Madras Institute of Technology). A seven-membered team including Dr. Kalam was told to work on the design of Air-craft under the guidance of Dr. N. Srinivasan, the then director of MIT. Three of them Dr. Kalam, Vivekanandan and Mahabaleswar were given the task of system integration. They were supposed to finish the same in three months' time.
Because of the delay in receiving the data on engine design, control system and some other sub-system drawings from his team-mates, Dr. Kalam’s work got more delayed. Finally he could not submit drawings in stipulated time and was actually late by more than two weeks. One evening, Dr. Srinivasan passing through Dr. Kalam’s room had seen him still working on drawing board. The director came in, insisted the student to finish project drawings within three days and warned him failing to do so would cancel the scholarship.
That was a big jolt for Dr. Kalam as he could not afford to study without scholarship. So after deciding to make the most of available time, he worked relentlessly. He slept in the classroom; went out only for food. Exactly after three days, Dr. Srinivasan visited his drawing board, examined drawings thoroughly and said, “This is good. You have performed a few weeks work in few days.” Those words were a great compliment for Dr.Kalam and his scholarship continued as earlier.
Dr.Kalam later mentioned this in his IGNITED MINDS* and concluded with this final note:
"If something is at stake, the human mind gets ignited & working capacity gets enhanced manifold. And Challenges only threw Opportunities."
*Dr. Kalam gave us IGNITED MINDS in April,2002 which remained one of my favourites. Inspired by it, I extracted this story, titled it "A Knife on the Throat" (meaning పీక మీద కత్తి in telugu) and gave it as a gift to my school friend.
