When problems besiege us, we should refuse to be defeated and we must persist in the face of them.  It is said that successful people are not those who never face any problems, but those who did not allow themselves to be defeated.

They always use to persist in the face of problems till the solution was reached.

One such successful person has been the most popular Indian president till today.

Yes, I am talking about Dr. A P J Abdul kalam.

Astonishingly, this immensely successful person had exceedingly humble beginnings.

Once he said . .All birds find shelter during rain. But Eagle avoid rain by flying above clouds. Problems are common but attitude makes the difference.

His father was a boatman in the southern part of India, where they used to ferry passengers from Rameshwaram to Dhanush Kodi.

Abdul Kalam was the youngest of 5 siblings and he did his schooling in the pilgrimage town of Rameshwaram. It is learned that he was not an outstanding student. But what distinguished him was his dedication to his studies.

There was free mathematics tuition available at 3.00 a.m  in the morning for which  Abdul kalam would go. After that, to earn some money, he used to distribute papers. 

As a young man, he landed a scholarship to the madras institute of technology. From where he did engineering in aeronautics.  On completion, he received two job interviews, the first was from the Indian air force and the second from the ministry of defense.

He reaches Dehradun for the air force interview.  Out of 20 candidates, eight were selected, Abdul kalam was the 9th.

This reality dawned upon him and shattered his heart that his lifelong dream of being an airplane pilot would never materialize.

He realized he would have to reconfigure the map of his life. For inspiration, he went to Rishikesh where he met the president of the divine life society, swami shivanand. Swami shivanand said that his destiny would be known to him in due course and could not be revealed in the present. 

Swami ji instructed him to intensify his desire and to make it extremely pure. He explained that in the face of a pure and intense desire, the universe aligns its forces to fulfill it.

Swami Shivanand suggested to the young Abdul kalam to take wisdom from the Bhagwat Gita. After that, they went and joined the ministry of defense, which was a newly formed wing called DRDO. 

 In 1952, he was one of the few selected scientists who got an opportunity to go and get training from NASA in USA.

The USA Government was so impressed by this young scientist. they offered him American Citizenship and 20 times the salary he was receiving from DRDO. But being a through and through patriot, Abdul Kalam had no difficulty rejecting that lucrative offer. He decided he would rather serve his country.

In 1969 as a member of the ISRO (Indian space research organization), Abdul kalam was put in charge of the satellite launch vehicle project. In 1979 the first SLV launch was a failure, and Abdul kalam feared coming in front of the media of the country.

At that time the chairman of ISRO Dr. Satish Dhawan came before the media and boldly announce that Dr. kalam’s team is of topmost quality and within a year they will achieve success. Those words came true in the year 1980

The SLV 3 launch was a grand success. Again Dr. Satish Dhawan came before the media and gave the entire credit to Dr. kalam’s team.

As his boss Dr. Kalam said, we can learn from everyone how to handle success, but how to handle failure  I learned from  Dr. Satish Dhawan.

In 1982 the belligerents of India’s neighbors China and Pakistan had increased and thereby the threat from them.

A task force was formed and the integrated guided missile mission was launched with Dr. Abdul kalam as the head. Until the year 1985, they succeeded in making many kinds of guided missiles, first the Trishul, then the Prithvi, and then the Akash.

Finally, they needed a long-range missile, but the Agni failed and again, it was a tremendous source of embarrassment to Dr. Abdul kalam. But he persisted and in 1985 when Agni was successfully launched, India joined the elite group of six nations with technology for long-distance guided missiles.

Dr. Abdul kalam became known as the missile man of India.

On that occasion, he said that he took his inspiration from Barbarik of Mahabharat, who use to possess only three arrows in his quiver and would send them with guiding ability so that after hitting the target they would return to the quiver.

Later on, in 1992 Pakistan made known to the world that it was developing nuclear technology with military intentions and it became extremely imperative for India to prepare the counter,

Operation Shakti has launched again with the missile man Dr Abdul kalam as the pioneer of the project.

In 1998, India succeeded in detonating in the space of a few days five nuclear devices of successively higher intensities.  And announced thereby to the world that is possessed the ability to ward off and counter any nuclear attack upon its sacred territories.

Dr kalam subsequently was awarded the highest Indian civil award the Bharat Ratna He said to the countrymen that my death should not be observed with a holiday, but rather work hard, the dream. I cherished is to see India as a superpower in the world.

Dr. Abdul Kalam’s philosophy was that when problems besiege us we should refuse to be defeated and we must persist in the face of them.  

His life was a blazing example. So, as we pray to the lord for inner strength, we realize that the biggest hurdle in facing problems is negativity. It starts harboring within ourselves. Let us pray to the Lord to remove that impediment of negativity from within. .

(All Pic source : Google.com)

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