Today we will go through the selected parts of the lectures delivered by our loveliest former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. Nearly 2,000 lectures have been compiled in this book Learning How To Fly. It will give us a great lesson on how to fly in your life and achieve your goals.
Most of the lectures were addressed in the schools, colleges, universities and educational institutions in front of our future, our students, teachers and mentors, in India and abroad as well.
Life Of Dr Kalam
A boy was born on 15 October, 1931 to a Tamil Muslim family in the pilgrimage centre of Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India. His father was an Imam of a local mosque. His mother was a homemaker. His journey starts as a boy distributing newspapers to serving as the President of India.
He is also known as the Missile Man of India and the People’s President. He was such a great scientist, author, mentor, teacher and owner of a kind personality. If I say that his introduction couldn’t be complete with words, it will not be wrong.
I Will Fly
The book starts with “I will fly”, which is the verses of famous Persian Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi:
I will fly
I am born with potential
I am born with goodness and trust
I am born with ideas and dreams
I am born with greatness
I am born with confidence
I am born with wings
So, I am not meant for crawling, I have wings, I will fly
I will fly and fly.
With the help of these verses, he is trying to say to all fellow citizens, especially our young generation, that you were born with unimaginable power. Find out that power and work on it. We have the capabilities to achieve anything in the world.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs Government of India, India is one of the youngest populations in the world, which is a valuable asset to contribute to the growth and development of our country. That would play a major role in the growth of the Indian economy and achieve the nation’s ambitious target of a 5 trillion economy.
Every person has enormous abilities to change the world and their lives themselves. With goodness, trust, ideas, dreams, greatness and confidence, you can definitely achieve anything. “I am born with wings” directly indicates us to just try to fly and one day you will, you can fly in the height of the sky.
Righteousness
Where there is righteousness in the heart,
There is beauty in the character.
When there is beauty in the character,
There is harmony in the home,
When there is harmony in the home,
There is an order in the nation.
When there is order in the nation,
There is peace in the world.
Keywords in these lines are righteousness, heart, character, beauty, harmony, nation and peace.
If you read Dr Kalam’s books/writings, you will find that he used the word “righteousness” so many times in his writings and lectures. Actually, he was trying to drag us to develop morality, purity, goodness, honesty and justice in our day to day life.
This word is not a simple word; every word has immense power to beautify our character, thinking, harmony, sense of equality and peace. These all are important aspects for peace and harmony in our life as well as the whole humanity/world.
He says, “Righteousness in the heart is the starting point for creating great individuals, families, nations and ultimately a great earth.”
For every success or growth in our house, society, district, state, organisation, national and international level or beyond it, we must have great visionary leaders with these leadership qualities:
- Leaders must have a vision.
- Leaders must have a passion to realise the vision.
- Leaders must be able to travel into an unexplored path.
- Leaders must know how to manage success and failure.
- Leaders must have the courage to take decisions.
- Leaders should have nobility in management.
- Leaders should be transparent in every action.
- Leaders must work with integrity and succeed with integrity.
In a part of this book named “Books as Our Guides”, he addresses the book fair festival at Erode (Tamil Nadu).
He suggested that everyone allocate at least one hour in a day for reading quality books. This will enrich them with the knowledge to empower the children and see them grow as great children. He also suggested all parents start a small library in their own home with approximately 20 books to begin with.
Dr Kalam would administer an oath to the participants:
“Today onwards, I will start a home library with 20 books, out of which 10 books will be children’s books. My children will enlarge this home library to make it 200 books. My grandchildren will lead a great home library to make it 2000 books.
“I consider our library a great lifelong treasure and the precious property of our family. We will spend at least one hour at the home library to study along with our family members.”
He shared a surprising event and after the oath, thousands of people rushed to the bookstalls and within an hour, most of the books available at the book fair had been sold.
These are some books suggested by Dr Kalam:
- Light from many lamps by Lillian Eichler
- Empires of the minds by Denis Waitley
- Thirukkural by Thiruvalluvar
- Everyday greatness by Steven Covey
- The story of my experiments with truth by Mahatma Gandhi
Every chapter starts with a heading with some inspiring lines:
I Will Fly: I am born with wings, so, I am meant for crawling, I have wings, I will fly.
Creating a Culture of Excellence: When you wish upon a star, Makes no difference who are, anything your heart desires, Will come to you.
Ignited Minds of the Youth: The power of the youth will definitely make a change.
The Life-long Quest for Knowledge: Teachers can influence students not only by teaching but by also giving practical lessons on human values, particularly by their selfless giving of knowledge.
Managing the Journey of Life: These are the best days of your lives, when you are learning to grow wings and learning to fly.
Innovation and Creativity: In a knowledge society, we have to make innovations continuously. Innovations come through creativity. Creativity comes from beautiful minds.
Be the Unique You: History has proven that those who dare to imagine the impossible are the ones who break all human limitations.
What Can Science Give You?: Science gives you better eyes because science can remove mental limitations and challenge your brain to solve many problems that have puzzled the world for years.
Empowerment of Three Billion People: When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds.
Be the Change: Discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamt yourself to be.
Striving for Excellence: Excellence happens not by accident. It is a process.
Books as Our Guides: Coming into contact with a good book and possessing it, is indeed an everlasting enrichment.
A Book in Every Hand: We must transcend barriers of language, distance, cost and even reading ability to make books reach a person.
Transforming the Future: As you grow up, you will have challenges and opportunities for solving many problems faced by humanity.
Intellect and Empathy: Youth has got the power of ideas, ambition and ability.
From Child to Leader: A leader says, “What can I do for you?”
The Evolution of Creative Leaders: A leader should work with integrity and succeed with integrity.
Healing with Heart: This is a great synergy between mind-body and medicine.
Every student must read I Will Fly or other writings, in fact, all the books written by him. He was such a personality and institution of knowledge. We should decode every word that was written by him and follow them to the growth and development of ourselves and our nation as well.