Wings of Fire: is an autobiography of A P J Abdul Kalam

Wings of Fire: is an autobiography of A P J Abdul Kalam

The section Orientation opens with a quote from the Atharva Veda

This Earth is His, to Him belong those vast and boundless skies;
Both seas within Him rest, and yet in that small pool He lies.
Orientation, the first section of Wings of Fire, spread into first three chapters, covers 32 years of Kalam’s life, from his birth in a “middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameshwaram”, his early schooling at Schwartz High School, Ramanathapuram, his undergraduate education at St. Joseph College, Trichy, completion of a degree course in aeronautic engineering from Madras Institute of Technology, and ends with him moving to the USA for a six month training program at NASA.


Creation

Itcovers 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 (LRC), NASA, in Houston, Virginia, USA, and at other facilities in the USA, including the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia. At a NASA facility, he remembers to have seen a painting, prominently displayed in the lobby. The painting depicted a battle scene with rockets flying in the background. On closer examination, he found that the painting depicted Tipu Sultan’s army fighting the British. Kalam felt happy to see an Indian glorified in NASA as a hero of rocketry-warfare.

His association with Thumba and Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) 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 Yeats by his friend Anden, and “felt” as if they were written for his father:

Earth receives an honoured guest;

William Yeats is laid to rest:
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
The period covered in the section Creation also brought Kalam national recognition. A pleasant surprise came in the form of conferment of Padma Bhushan on the Republic Day, 26th January, 1981. He reminisces that the award invoked mostly positive reaction, but few became envious too. This reminded him words of Lewis Carroll:

You may charge me with murder
Or want of sense (We are all of us weak at times)
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!

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Excerpts from Dr Abdul Kalam’s autobiography Wings of Fire:

I inherited honesty and self-discipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and so did my three brothers and sister


With faith, you can change your destiny.

Let God be your hope, your stay, your guide and provide the lantern for your feet in your journey into the future.


Desire, when it stems from the heart and spirit, when it is pure and intense, possesses awesome electromagnetic energy. This energy is released into the ether each night, as the mind falls into the sleep state. Each morning it returns to the conscious state reinforced with the cosmic currents. That which has been imaged will surely and certainly be manifested. You can rely, young man, upon this ageless promise as surely as you can rely upon the eternally unbroken promise of sunrise…and of Spring.


Accept your destiny and go ahead with your life. You are not destined to become an Air Force pilot. What you are destined to become is not revealed now but it is predetermined. Forget this failure, as it was essential to lead you to your destined path. Search, instead, for the true purpose of your existence. Become one with yourself, my son! Surrender yourself to the wish of God.


All beings are born to delusion… overcome by the dualities which arise from wish and hate…But those men of virtuous deeds in whom sin has come to an end, freed from the delusion of dualities, worship Me steadfast in their vows.


Bread baked without love is bitter bread that feeds but half a man’s hunger, those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around. If you are a writer who would secretly prefer to be a lawyer or a doctor, your written words will feed but half the hunger of your readers; if you are a teacher who would rather who would rather be a businessman, your instructions will meet but half the need for knowledge of your students; if you are a scientist who hates science, your performance will satisfy but half the needs of your mission. The personal unhappiness and failure to achieve results that comes from being a round peg in a square hole is not by any means, new.


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

What you imagine, is what will transpire. What you believe is what you will achieve.

Before God trusts you with success, you have to prove yourself humble enough to handle the big prize.

God has not promised
Skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathway
All our life though;
God has not promised
Sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow,
Peace without pain.