A.P.J. Abdul Kalam - My Journey: Transforming Dreams Into Actions

Born on 15 October 1931, at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Dr Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam specialized in aeronautical engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. Dr Kalam is one of the most distinguished scientists of India and has received honorary doctorates from forty-five universities and institutions in India and abroad. He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan (1981), the Padma Vibhushan (1990) and India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna (1997). He has also received the King Charles II medal (2007), the Woodrow Wilson Award (2008), the Hoover Award (2008) and the International Von Karman Wings Award (2009) among other international accolades.

Dr Kalam became the eleventh President of India on 25 July 2002. His focus and greatest ambition remains finding ways to transform India into a developed nation.

Published by

Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2013

7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New Delhi 110002

Sales Centres:

Allahabad Bengaluru Chennai

Hyderabad Jaipur Kathmandu

Kolkata Mumbai

Text copyright A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 2013

Illustrations copyright Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2013

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publishers prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

To the sixteen million youth who I have met and

interacted with in the last two decades

My Journey recounts certain unique experiences of my life from my childhood until now, when I am over eighty years old. In all these years and through all these experiences, the most important lesson I have learnt is, one must keep dreaming at various phases of life, and then work hard to realize those dreams. If we do so, then success is imminent. To the many people I meet I always say, 'Dreams are not those that we see in our sleep; they should be the ones that never let us sleep.'

The idea for this book came to me one day while I was walking in my garden. Like every other time, I stood under the grand Arjuna tree which is nearly a hundred years old in age, and I looked up into its branches to see if any new nests had been built by birds or if a fresh beehive had appeared. And something in that moment, as I gazed up at this tree, in this city of Delhi, reminded me intensely of my father. He, too, was an early riser whose first few hours of the day would be spent with nature, examining his coconut trees, walking the roads of the town we lived in. I recalled with a smile and a feeling of happiness my childhood, the people who inhabited it, the hands I held while I traversed it. I then also began to think of the journey that my life has beenthe unusual paths I have travelled, the things I have seen, the events I have been a part of. And I began to wonder if these memories and experiences should stay with me or if I must share them with my numerous readers and family members whose numbers have grown as large as the abundant roots of an enormous banyan treeits great-great-grandchildren!

I have written a few books till date, and in some of them I have described my childhood experiences. When I wrote my first book about my life, I had wondered how it would interest anyone. Unlike in my previous books, My Journey focuses more on the smaller, lesser-known happenings in my life. The incidents around my mother and father were written because even now, at the age of eighty-two, I still cherish the values and ethics that they lovingly inculcated in me. The qualities they instilled in me, and which I learnt from observing them and by understanding their reactions to the adversities they faced, have helped me live better, and through these values my parents still live strongly within me. When my father talked about the importance of understanding people's minds, or faced difficulties stoically, I remembered his words years later when I was battling various odds myself. In my mother's tender touch and sensitive upbringing of her children I found a world of love and kindness. I also felt compelled to record in detail the contributions of my sister Zohra and her generosity; the openness of the outlook of my first mentor Ahmed Jalalluddin that first encouraged me to think of studying further. Instances such as my failure to qualify for the Indian Air Force and the other adversities I have been witness to, have all brought home to me the necessity of setbacks in one's life. Yes, they seem insurmountable at the time, but there really is no difficulty one cannot overcome if there is determination in the heart.

Recently, I was talking to my friend Professor Arun Tiwari, when he suddenly asked me an unusual question, 'Kalam saheb, can you sum up your life so far, in one sentence?'

It made me think for a while. Eventually I said, 'Arun, my life can be summed up in these phrases and words: love poured to the childstrugglemore strugglebitter tears then sweet tearsand finally a life as beautiful and fulfilling as seeing the birth of the full moon.'

I hope these stories will help all my readers understand their dreams and compel them to work on those dreams that keep them awake.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

or as far back as I can remember, my father Jainulabdeen's day began at 4 a.m. He would be up before anyone else in the household. After saying his prayers in the breaking light of the day, he would go on a long walk to visit his coconut grove. We lived in Rameswaram, a small temple town on an island in Tamil Nadu. This being on the east coast of India, dawn would break early, and our day's schedule followed the rhythm of the rising and setting of the sun and the sea waves.

The sound of the sea was a constant presence in our lives. Storms and cyclones blew by with regularity during the tumultuous monsoon months. We lived in our ancestral home, a fairly large house made of limestone and brick, built some time in the nineteenth century. It was never luxurious, but was filled with love. My father had a boat-building business. Additionally, we also owned a small coconut grove some four miles away from our house. That was where my father would be headed for in the early morning hours. His walking circuit was well established and he rarely deviated from it. First he would step out into Mosque Street, where our house was located. It was a small, predominantly Muslim locality not too far from the Shiva temple that has made our town famous for centuries. He would then walk through the narrow lanes of the town, on to the more open roads leading to the coconut groves, and finally wind his way through the groves to his patch of land.

Today I try to imagine him walking on those quiet roads, long before the day made its many demands on him. Ours was a large family and I am sure there were many pressures on him to see to our needs. But at that hour, I think of him listening intently to the sea, to the ever-present ravens and other birds that swooped and flew all around, woken up by the rising sun like him. Perhaps he said his prayers to himself as he walked, or thought of his family with a calm, uncluttered early morning mind. I never did ask him what went through his mind on this long daily walkfor when does a young boy really have the time to reflect in this way about his father? But I was always sure that the morning walk added something to his personality, an element of calm that was apparent even to strangers.