Summary/review

Wings of fire
By – Dr APJ ABDUL KALAM
This book demonstrates the life of dr apj abdul kalam from a small
young boy living in the town of Rameswaram to a celebrated
scientist. Dr kalam discussed the lessons he learnt throught various
stages of his life through his experiences. Starting from childhood
where he would distribute newspapers to earn money to support his
family and read books under the lantern in the library late till the
night. He talked about despite being from a Muslim family his father
was such great friends with the head priest of Rameswaram temple
and they would often discuss regarding spiritual matters. He shares
one such interesting anecdote of his childhood where his guru takes
him to the beach and points him some flying seagulls, he carefully
explains to the young dr kalam the principles of aerodynamics which
fascinates him so much that he chooses his life’s goal related to
flying. Thereby demonstrating the importance of a guru in one’s life.
So he naturally tries to get into the Indian air force where he ranks
9th but only the top 8 are selected thereby shattering his dreams but
he still doesn’t loose courage and goes to the university of madras to
learn more about aerodynamics. There he is intellectually challenged
by his professors through difficult assignments but keeps on going
thereby teaching us the values of perseverance and hard work.
Gradually he moves into professional life joining the Aeronautical
Development Establishment of the Defence Research and
Development Organisation as an aeronautical engineer where he
works on hovercrafts under the guidance of dr Vikram sarabhai , a
legend in his own right. He then goes on to join the Indian space
research organisation where he works as a project director on India’s
first satellite launch vehicle. He further visits NASA to learn more and
helps in the development of strategic defence missiles like agni,
Prithvi and PSLVs. Throught the book he demonstrated years of hard
work put by him and his team in making each of the projects
successful thereby inspiring us through his passion, grit and love for
his country. He on learning the untimely demise of his mentor and
guru dr Vikram sarabhai became very sad and depressed. He always
talked about the importance of having a teacher in one’s life and the
way he overcame his grief and continued moving towards the next
goal, teaches me how one should learn how to deal with failures as
he always said.
Through this book dr apj abdul kalam tells us that life is not a bed of
roses but a rocky road where one will see both successes and failures
the only thing is that we have keep on going. He also faced many
failures in life be it with his rejection in the IAF or failures in his
missile projects but he always accepted his shortcomings, worked on
them and succeeded. I would recommend all to read Wings of fire by
dr apj abdul kalam.