Many
articles have been published on Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam after
he took last breath at IIM Shillong on 27th July 2015. The inspirational
journey which started on 15th October 1931 in Rameswaram, small town
located in Southern India, ended in 2015 after writing history. There are so
many things already published on him that nothing is left for me to add in the
list. But not devoting a blog on his name will be injustice with the person
from whom I get inspiration. It was really touching when the news channels
flashed about the sudden death of Missile Man who was not only former President
of India but also a leader who inspired millions of youth all across the
country.
“every youth wants to be unique that is YOU.
But the world around you, is doing its best, day and night, just to make you
everybody else. The challenge, my young friends is that you have to fight the
hardest battle which any human being can ever imagine to fight and never stop
fighting until you arrived at your destined place that is UNIQUE YOU! Friends,
what will be your tools to fight the battle, what are they? Have a great aim in
life, continuously acquire the knowledge, work hard & persevere to realize
the great achievement.”
What makes him so
great? How he is unique in himself? What can we learn from him?
He
belonged to poor family, sold newspaper in childhood, completed his education
on scholarship, successfully accomplished ISRO SLV project, man behind Agni and
Prithvi missiles and yes, who can forget Pokhran II test. His real greatness
doesn’t lie behind his brain which put India in elite club of countries having
knowledge of Space and Defense technologies. Real greatness lies in his
simplicity which has been explained below.
You
must have heard about brain drain. Lots of highly talented youth after
acquiring higher education from renowned Institute of India leave the country
for the sake of huge packages offered to them by foreign companies. Google,
Microsoft, NASA, Airbus, IBM are few among many companies where huge number of
Indians are employed. Some people take initiative and join Indian organizations
like ISRO, DRDO, AIIMS for research related work. But soon they leave arguing
about numerous hurdles between them and their innovative ideas like lack of
proper management, lack of political support, lack of proper funding, etc which
is true. So how did Kalam managed to escape this all or was he lucky enough to
not face such scenario? Dr. Kalam was not lucky, he faced such situation every
now and then but there was uniqueness in him which didn’t let him bow down
before the hurdles. The faith from the system didn’t end. You will see many
people who face such hurdles, start pointing fingers on the system and then
leave the battle after putting all the blame on paralyzed or unsupportive
system. This was not done by Kalam. Let me present you real life example. After
the success of SLV in ISRO, Kalam wanted to use the technique learned there in
developing ballistic missiles. The code name of the project was Devil and
Valiant. Union Cabinet didn’t agree with the project tabled by Dr. Kalam. But
he had the power of convincing. So he convinced then PM Indira Gandhi who got
impressed and allotted secret fund to continue the project. Even the SLV
program got success after failure that too under Kalam leadership. This was the
uniqueness within him. Instead of acting as lost gambler, he kept on attempting
which later on resulted in success. Instead of blaming system or going against
it, he remained the part of the system and tried to bring a change for good
cause. This uniqueness is not present in most of the youth in present
generation which is the matter of concern. Are these the only qualities or
there are more? Well there are more.
“All birds find shelter during a rain. But
Eagle avoids rain by flying above the Clouds. Problems are common, but attitude
makes the difference!”
Dr.
Kalam was too noble by nature. What common you will find within most of the
people holding higher post is the sense of ego or agony. After reaching higher
position, sense of pride changes into arrogance. But here Dr. Kalam was
exception. He headed numerous projects at ISRO and DRDO. He was Chief
Scientific Advisor of PM for 8 years. He was awarded with India’s highest
civilian award i.e. Bharat Ratna and above all, he was 11th President
of India, highest position under Constitution of India. Even after holding such
positions, he didn’t had a bit of ego or arrogance. There are numerous examples
which support this statement. He paid Rs 3.5 lakh in wake of money spent on his
52 family members who visited Rastrapati Bhawan when he was President. He
refused to sit on chair of podium in a college just because it was bit higher
and appeared special than the adjacent chairs. He regularly meets student for
inspiring them to become leader, took numerous classes in number of
universities. There are uncountable numbers of stuffs like these. And after
having all these success under his name, what he has to say was,
“Don’t read success stories, You will get
only message. Read failure stories, You will get some ideas to get success!”
All
these are the real greatness of this man. He has left lots of examples for us
to find success in our life. Following the same doesn’t mean that each one of
us will become another Kalam but certainly it will change or perspective of observing
situations and taking steps to tackle them.
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