Abdul Kalam Sir

Abdul Kalam belonged to a poor family, he started working to support his father at a very young age of only 8 years old. Soon after the aforementioned mathematics classes were over, Kalam along with his cousin Samsuddin started distributing newspapers, all around the town.

While the mathematics  classes lasted for around one hour, ending around 5 am; Kalam would also have to be ready for the Koran classes in a nearby Arabic School. And post these Koran classes, Kalam would have to next reach the railway station that existed between the tracks of Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi. Again when it was after school and during the evening, Kalam had to again go for rounds to collect the dues from their newspaper customers. And all this while, Kalam had to maintain his other duties as well including his homework and prayers. This schedule actually went on for many years. And amidst these struggles, Kalam managed his school, his prayers and what not.

However it’s not that soon after he grew up his struggles came to an end. Soon after he grew up and soon when he started attending one step of success after the other, Kalam often faced many other failures and most importantly challenges.

At MIT Madras Institute of Technology, Kalam perfectly understood the importance and the value of time. He once recalled one such incident when he was busy leading a certain project on system design and suddenly one day the principal showed himself up because he wanted to check Kalam’s work. Checking it, it seemed that the latter was quite dissatisfied, following which he told Kalam that his scholarship would be taken away if he was unable to submit the respective project within two days. Now this was actually no less than a real challenge not just because he might lose his scholarship but also because losing it would mean all his father’s struggles shall be failed. Kalam soon started working without either food or sleep and he was actually successful. The principal later checking the work was seriously quite a lot impressed.

Yet another failure which was actually quite a big one was that of SLV-3, that was Kalam’s first major project. Adding to this situation, Jalaludin, the childhood mentor of Kalam passed away. However these two incidents didn’t stop Kalam, following which he worked harder for the same project but for a second time. On this issue, Kalam said, “I knew that for success, we have to work hard and persevere.” Following this, Kalam again launched the SLV-3 and this time it surely met with success.

Soon after this first major project and of course, one of the most important successes, Kalam started climbing the ladder of achievement. Soon his missiles Prithvi, Agni, Nag and Trishul turned out to be dramatically successful. Likewise he achieved another milestone in his life when his Rohini-1 had been launched in space. And soon witnessing his constant struggle to attain success in every step, Kalam was made the President of India, for the tenure between 2002 to 2007.

Along with being a president and of course India’s bachelor “missile man”, Kalam also penned his thoughts and became an inspirational author with books like “Ignited Minds,” “ Inspiring Thoughts,” “Luminous Sparks” and of course the much acclaimed “India 2020.”

However this inspiring man and winner of multiple awards including Padma Bhushan and Bharat Ratna awards, breathed his last while delivering a lecture at Shillong Indian Institute of Management on 27th July, 2015, passing down inspiration to millions and millions of people.