Wings of imagination

Kalam’s latest book talks about his childhood, journey and the future of science and technology

Former President Abdul Kalam’s latest book Reignited: Scientific Pathways to a Brighter Future has quite a few inspiring stories of his extraordinary journey. It would have been hard for anyone during Kalam’s time to imagine that the frail young boy delivering newspapers would grow up to be a recipient of Bharat Ratna.

His childhood in Rameshwaram was, according to him, the most eventful part of his life. As a young boy, he was drawn to stories of planes and pilots. But since he belonged to a village, he struggled to find company of the people who shared his interests. But fortunately for Kalam, his gifted teachers gave him the much needed spark of imagination that drew him towards physics and rocket engineering.

In the book, Kalam talks about the lesson that changed his life and inspired him. "My science teacher's name was Sivasubramania Iyer. One day, during my tenth class, the topic of discussion was 'how birds fly'. He went to the blackboard and drew a sketch of a bird with a tail, wings and head and explained how a bird flew?” The teacher, narrates Kalam, then took the entire class to the beach of Rameshwaram and point to the flying birds.

He helped the students understand how birds use their wings to fly and their tails to change directions. That lecture, says Kalam, transformed his life and led him to pursue his passion: rocket engineering and space flight. "What I learnt that day was unique. My teacher gave me an aim in life. Later I realised how important it was to study physics. I chose physics. I opted for aeronautical engineering, and then became a rocket engineer. Then a space technologist," he says.

As a child, Kalam eagerly waited for the daily newspaper Dinamani. When in Class V, he delivered news papers. Every morning at 5 am, he would rush to the railway station to pick up the day’s stock of newspapers. Before going door to door distributing them, Kalam would steal a few minutes to pull out a copy for himself and browse for the photographs of the Second World War and the fighter aircraft.

The stories carried detailed information about brave pilots from the warring countries and how they skillfully maneuvered their aircraft and bombers. The book published by Penguins and co-authored by Kalam’s former scientific advisor Srijan Pal Singh contains several such nuggets about Kalam's life along with advice for young people and children who wish to pursue careers in areas like robotics, aeronautics, neurosciences, pathology, paleontology and material sciences. The book also explores the realm of science and technology, their extraordinary achievements and their impact on lives in the days to come.