Autobiography of a student pdf apj

He dedicated his whole life to the upliftment of country. Had he wished he could have gone to foreign country and live a luxuries life. But he always see people of India as his own children. He emphasized on to build some of the indigenous machinery on rocket science field. He was a scientist, poet, author, teacher, social worker, president and lot more.

His work is widely appreciated across the world. For his excellence he was awarded with Bharat Ratna highest Indian civilian award. He didn't married to anyone. At his death time, there was no one to claim his property. Even before dying, he was giving lecture to college students. Seeing that I have utmost respect for him. The book beautifully described the life of Dr.

Kalam in lucid language. The book contain some of the rare photos of Dr. Word choice is excellent and pleasing to read. The book was published before the death of Dr. So it would be nice of publisher, if they would add the death part of Dr. Kalam in the book on next edition. His life is true inspiration for everyone. How he sacrificed all his life for country is not a cup of tea for all.

He inspire the generation to come. True ratna of India. Salute to People's president. APJ Abdul Kalam transcends the confinements of this genre. It may well be viewed as an amalgamation of autobiography and a discourse on inspirational leadership and motivational guidance. Now on a personal front I have always kept my faith on the institution of self-cultivation and self-reliance.

Standing on my experience which I confess isn't that much time tested I can say that may be there is an ethereal satisfaction on being a maverick but there certainly are moments when you do feel exhausted,drained mentally and emotionally. Those are the times when one craves for sources to draw much needed energy from. Literature has always provided me with that fountain of vigour.

I would like to classify this book as one of those refuges for me. It takes us on a journey of dreams,success,failure and more emphatically on a journey of hope. The protagonist did not come on this planet with a silver spoon in his mouth. The streak that differentiates him is the willingness to push through the atmosphere of negativity which is always eager to make it's presence felt.

One rather shrouded point that I feel quite justifiably calls for attention is Mr. Kalam's idea of a real teacher. It amazes me to think how a personality of his caliber who later went on to adorn the most coveted post of the first citizen of world's largest democracy,counted his childhood acquaintance Jallaluddin,"a virtually illiterate man" as one of his most resourceful teachers.

I think only humility and a comprehensive perception of wisdom in it's truest sense will be able to reason this out. Now my personal admiration for this man harnesses me from saying anything that might offend the composition. But on a more practical note the detailed discourse on armament and weaponry might not be enjoyed by every other reader.

Having said that there are enough elements which more than compensate for this draw back and cater to the test of readers of all age group. You may well take my word for it. Last but not the least feathers on the crown are those captivating lines penned by both Mr. Kalam and other renowned poets. Now if I am to put the gist in a nutshell the following excerpt would be in complete harmony with my gain autobiography of a student pdf apj this literary marvel When you address a task from your own uniquely individual standpoint,you become a whole person.

Alfie Shuvro. Saipriya N. No wonder he is popularly known as "Missile Man of India" and "People's President" Irrespective of soo many "downs" in his life, he has made impeccable breakthroughs in the field of Indian space and defense, thereby never giving immense power to those "downs" to dictate his future. From his childhood, he always felt he has got a huge responsibility towards his society.

In this book, he pays a great tribute to all of those who stood by him throughout his journey- his family, teachers, colleagues, friends, his seniors, juniors, and many more Sometimes, we fail to notice the most trivial things in life and how much importance a person gives to those things says a lot about his personality. Eg: While his team on a visit to a place of missile flight trials; he narrates, "There was a beautiful bird sanctuary in Chandipur.

I asked the engineers to design the test range without disturbing it " Once again, in every above context, Dr. Abdul Kalam sir has proved to be an icon to his own and his future generations. I'm deeply touched by reading this book and strongly recommend everybody to read it! Arunothia Marappan. Kalam, but his life will always be a huge source of inspiration to me.

Autobiography of a student pdf apj: I was born in the

In this book, he shares his journey starting from the streets of Rameshwaram to building the first Agni missile. Kalam's deep sense of gratitude towards all his loved ones is reflected in almost each and every page of this book. The way he describes his awe towards the likes of Mr. Vikram Sarabhai and Mr. Wernher von Braun is admirable and the way his team stuck through the failure of SLV-3 etc.

I highly recommend this book to every Indian! Niranjan Kamath. An amazing book full of inspiration and life lessons. The author has fulfilled the objective of this book with the detailed and engaging content. The book leaves the readers with questions to ponder and ideas to implement. Arihant Verma. Such humbleness yet firmness in hand and mind of a man who practically guided the development of Indian Missiles and Space Exploration Power.

I didn't know any of what he had done, except that he had been the President of India. Apart from the poems he had written or the quotes he quoted, this book, as he says while coming to the end of the book, was just a bird's eye view of his life dedicated to study rocketry, BUT! It didn't feel so. He was like the most efficient feedback loop of the human mind ever.

Even throwing a sufficient amount of jargon in it, the book wasn't repulsive at any point of time, which advances this book to my most quickly read book of all time. The memoir goes through the difficulties technological, organizational, personal Kalam faced whence he was a boy. He establishes a very obvious fact, that no matter what, we are being taken care of and that every problem, is not anything but an opportunity to grow and evolve.

A must read. An absolutely brilliant book. The book is a testament to the enormous talent available in our country. The book is narrated by Kalam on his autobiography of a student pdf apj from a small village to becoming the autobiography of a student pdf apj director of missile program. Throughout the book Kalam gives example of leadership, work ethic and interpersonal skill.

I am only sad that I read this book so late in my life. Its a must read for anyone who is disillusioned by the corporate dream or a progressing India. The book is a must read for every Indian. I am hope and pray this book becomes part of the curriculum in school and Engineering in India. We would benefit from it immensely. Drop everything and start reading this book.

Anand Ganapathy. In his book, Kalam has spoken less about himself and more about India's space research programs. He has also shared his thoughts on the relationship between science and god, project management, rocket science, etc. Very informative and thought provoking book. Reread this like Abdul Kalam transformation from human beings to spiritual beings with human experience, thus originates in his juvenile years.

Prayer helps us to tap and develop these powers. Abdul Kalam, Wings of Fire This divine elixir generates zeal within him, to achieve the great feats and borne wants in him to excel, he integrate all these energies, efforts, corporeal and intellectual fortes to summit the peak of excellence. Abdul Kalam His Mentors Ahmed Jallaluddin was a close friend and fifteen years older than him, later he became his brother in law, he was Abdul Kalam mentor, philosopher and guide.

He taught Abdul Kalam art of positive thinking and provide spark to ignite his intellect towards scientific discoveries. Moreover, he encourages him to read about accomplishment in medical sciences, English literature and other frontiers of knowledge. He enlightens and embolden Abdul Kalam young mind towards mysteries of cosmos and enchant him to the magical world of creativity.

He and his wife Zohara had great faith in the talents and abilities of Abdul Kalam; they had total conviction that he will shine like rising Sun on their horizon. Ahmed Jallaluddin is the person who burnt his soul to let Abdul Kalam flies to the present heights. This may have been the reason why he always encouraged me to excel in my studies and enjoyed my success vicariously.

I managed to be on the list of selected candidates, but admission to this prestigious institution was an expensive affair. Around a thousand rupees was required, and my father could not spare that much money. At that time, my sister, Zohara, stood behind me, mortgaging her gold bangles and chain. I was deeply touched by her determination to see me educated and by her faith in my abilities.

His Inspiration Jainulabdeen, his father was not a man of letters but blessed with sharp intellect, attitude and enterprise skillfulness. He manage to augment his income, by building a wooden boat using ingenious method and ply pilgrims from coast to the island, he also manage a coconut grove four miles from his home, and daily at dawn bring coconut from there for family consumption.

His innovative and imaginative ideas help him to provide materially and emotional secure upbringing to all his children. He is hardworking, rational and resourceful person and Abdul Kalam inherited these virtues and attitude. He wants to emulate his father in the world of Science and Technology. This is where things grow, experience is gain, and technologies are master.

The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides. Nevertheless, Eagle avoids rain by flying above the Clouds. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest.

Sign up Log in. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. When my father came out of the mosque after the prayers, people of different religions would be sitting outside, waiting for him. Many of them offered bowls of water to my father who would dip his fingertips in them and say a prayer.

This water was then carried home for invalids. I also remember people visiting our home to offer thanks after being cured. My father always smiled and asked them to thank Allah, the benevolent and merciful. One of the most vivid memories of my early childhood is of the two men, each in his traditional attire, discussing spiritual matters.

When I was old enough to ask questions, I asked my father about the relevance of prayer. My father told me there was nothing mysterious about prayer. Rather, prayer made possible a communion of the spirit between people. So why be afraid of difficulties, sufferings and problems? When troubles come, try to understand the relevance of your sufferings.

Adversity always presents opportunities for introspection. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked straight into my eyes. For quite some time he said nothing, as if he was judging my capacity to comprehend his words. Then he answered in a low, deep voice. Whenever they are in trouble, they look for someone to help them. Whenever they reach an impasse, they look to someone to show them the way out.

Every recurrent anguish, longing, and desire finds its own special helper. For the people who come to me in distress, I am but a go-between in their effort to propitiate demonic forces with prayers and offerings. This is not a correct approach at all and should never be followed. One must understand the difference between a fear-ridden vision of destiny and the vision that enables us to seek the enemy of fulfilment within ourselves.

By the time the boat met its untimely end, Ahmed Jallaluddin had become a autobiography of a student pdf apj friend of mine, despite the difference in our ages. He was about 15 years older than I and used to call me Azad. We used to go for long walks together every evening. As we started from Mosque Street and made our way towards the sandy shores of the island, Jallaluddin and I talked mainly of spiritual matters.

The atmosphere of Rameswaram, with its flocking pilgrims, was conducive to such discussion. Our first halt would be at the imposing temple of Lord Shiva. Circling around the temple with the same reverence as any pilgrim from a distant part of the country, we felt a flow of energy pass through us. I remember my father starting his day at 4 a.

After the namaz, he used to walk down to a small coconut grove we owned, about 4 miles from our home. He would return, with about a dozen coconuts tied together thrown over his shoulder, and only then would he have his breakfast. This remained his routine even when he was in his late sixties. Jallaluddin would talk about God as if he had a working partnership with Him.

He would present all his doubts to God as if He were standing nearby to dispose of them. I would stare at Jallaluddin and then look towards the large groups of pilgrims around the temple, taking holy dips in the sea, performing rituals and reciting prayers with a sense of respect towards the same Unknown, whom we treat as the formless Almighty.

I never doubted that the prayers in the temple reached the same destination as the ones offered in our mosque. I only wondered whether Jallaluddin had any other special connection to God. This may have been the reason why he always encouraged me to excel in my studies and enjoyed my success vicariously. Never did I find the slightest trace of resentment in Jallaluddin for his deprivation.

Rather, he was always full of gratitude for whatever life had chosen to give him. I have throughout my life tried to emulate my father in my own world of science and technology. And once an individual severs his emotional and physical bondage, he is on the road to freedom, happiness and peace of mind. I was about six years old when my father embarked on the project of building a wooden sailboat to take pilgrims from Rameswaram to Dhanuskodi, also called Sethukkaraiand back.

He worked at building the boat on the seashore, with the help of a relative, Ahmed Jallaluddin, who later married my sister, Zohara. I watched the boat take shape. The wooden hull and bulkheads were seasoned with the heat from wood fires. My father was doing good business with the boat when, one day, a cyclone bringing winds of over miles per hour carried away our boat, along with some of the landmass of Sethukkarai.

The Pamban Bridge collapsed with a train full of passengers on it. Until then, I had only seen the beauty of the sea, now its uncontrollable energy came as a revelation to me. He wrote letters for almost anybody in need, be they letters of application or otherwise. Jallaluddin always spoke to me about educated people, of scientific discoveries, of contemporary literature, and of the achievements of medical science.

He encouraged me to read all I could and I often visited his home to borrow books. Another person who greatly influenced my boyhood was my first cousin, Samsuddin. He was the sole distributor for newspapers in Rameswaram. The newspapers would arrive at Rameswaram station by the morning train from Pamban. These newspapers were mainly bought to keep abreast of current developments in the National Independence Movement, for astrological reference or to check the bullion rates prevailing in Madras.

Dinamani was the most sought after newspaper. Since reading the printed matter was beyond my capability, I had to satisfy myself with glancing at the pictures in the newspaper before Samsuddin delivered them to his customers. The Second World War broke out inwhen I was eight years old. For reasons I have never been able to understand, a sudden demand for tamarind seeds erupted in the market.

I used to collect the seeds and sell them to a provision shop on Mosque Street. Jallaluddin would tell me stories about the war which I would later attempt to trace in the headlines in Dinamani. Our area, being isolated, was completely unaffected by the war. But soon India was forced to join the Allied Forces and something like a state of emergency was declared.

The first casualty came in the form of the suspension of the train halt at Rameswaram station. The newspapers now had to be bundled and thrown out from the moving train on the Rameswaram Road between Rameswaram and Dhanuskodi. That forced Samsuddin to look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and, as if naturally, I filled the slot.

Half a century later, I can still feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for the first time. Every child is born, with some inherited characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and emotional environment, and trained in certain ways by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and self-discipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and so did my three brothers and sister.

But it was the time I spent with Jallaluddin and Samsuddin that perhaps contributed most to the uniqueness of my childhood and made all the difference in my later life. The unschooled wisdom of Jallaluddin and Samsuddin was so intuitive and responsive to non-verbal messages, that I can unhesitatingly attribute my subsequently manifested creativity to their company in my childhood.

I had three close friends in my childhood—Ramanadha Sastry, Aravindan, and Sivaprakasan. All these boys were from orthodox Hindu Brahmin families. As children, none of us ever felt any difference amongst ourselves because of our religious differences and upbringing. Later, he took over the priesthood of the Rameswaram temple from his father; Aravindan went into the business of arranging transport for visiting pilgrims; and Sivaprakasan became a catering contractor for the Southern Railways.

During the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam ceremony, our family used to arrange boats with a special platform for carrying idols of the Lord from the temple to the marriage site, situated in the middle of the pond called Rama Tirtha which was near our house. Events from the Ramayana and from the life of the Prophet were the bedtime stories my mother and grandmother would tell the children in our family.

One day when I was in the fifth standard at the Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher came to our class. I used to wear a cap which marked me as a Muslim, and I always sat in the front row next to Ramanadha Sastry, who wore a sacred thread. In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the back bench.

He looked utterly downcast as I shifted to my seat in the last row. The image of him weeping when I shifted to the last row left a lasting impression on me. After school, we went home and told our respective parents about the incident. Lakshmana Sastry summoned the teacher, and in our presence, told the teacher that he should not spread the poison of social inequality and communal intolerance in the minds of innocent children.

He bluntly asked the teacher to either apologize or quit the school and the island. Not only did the teacher regret his behaviour, but the strong sense of conviction Lakshmana Sastry conveyed ultimately reformed this young teacher. On the whole, the small society of Rameswaram was highly stratified and very rigid in terms of the segregation of different social groups.

However, my science teacher Sivasubramania Iyer, though an orthodox Brahmin with a very conservative wife, was something of a rebel. He did his best to break social barriers so that people from varying backgrounds could mingle easily. His wife was horrified at the idea of a Muslim boy being invited to dine in her ritually pure kitchen. She refused to serve me in her kitchen.

Sivasubramania Iyer was not perturbed, nor did he get angry with his wife, but instead, served me with his own hands and sat down beside me to eat his meal. His wife watched us from behind the kitchen door. I wondered whether she had observed any difference in the way I ate rice, drank water or cleaned the floor after the meal. When I was leaving his house, Sivasubramania Iyer invited me to join him for dinner again the next weekend.

The whole country was filled with an unprecedented optimism. I know you have to go away to grow. Does the seagull not fly across the Sun, alone and without a nest? You must forego your longing for the land of your memories to move into the dwelling place of your greater desires; our love will not bind you nor will our needs hold you. They come through you but not from you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. Your soul dwells in the house of tomorrow which none of us at Rameswaram can visit, not even in our dreams.

Autobiography of a student pdf apj: Who Am I? is the

May God bless you, my child! Somehow, I did not take to the new setting. The town of Ramanathapuram was a thriving, factious town of some fifty thousand people, but the coherence and harmony of Rameswaram was absent. I missed my home and grabbed every opportunity to visit Rameswaram.

Autobiography of a student pdf apj: Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

The pull of educational opportunities at Ramanathapuram was not strong enough to nullify the attraction of poli, a South Indian sweet my mother made. In fact, she used to prepare twelve distinctly different varieties of it, bringing out the flavour of every single ingredient used in the best possible combinations. Despite my homesickness, I was determined to come to terms with the new environment because I knew my father had invested great hopes in my success.

I tried hard to do as he said, which was to strive to control my thoughts and my mind and, through these, to influence my destiny. Ironically, that destiny did not lead me back to Rameswaram, but rather, swept me farther away from the home of my childhood. My teacher, Iyadurai Solomon, was an ideal guide for an eager young mind that was yet uncertain of the possibilities and alternatives that lay before it.

He made his students feel very comfortable in class with his warm and open-minded attitude. He used to say that a good student could learn more from a bad teacher than a poor student from even a skilled teacher. During my stay at Ramanathapuram, my relationship with him grew beyond that of teacher and pupil. To take an example from my own life, I had been fascinated by the mysteries of the sky and the flight of birds from early childhood.

I used to watch cranes and seagulls soar into flight and longed to fly. Simple, provincial boy though I was, I was convinced that one day I, too, would soar up into the skies. Indeed, I was the first child from Rameswaram to fly. Iyadurai Solomon was a great teacher because he instilled in all the children a sense of their own worth.

One day, when I was in the fourth form, my mathematics teacher, Ramakrishna Iyer, was teaching another class. Inadvertently, I wandered into that classroom and in the manner of an old-fashioned despot, Ramakrishna Iyer caught me by the neck and caned me in front of the whole class. Many months later, when I scored full marks in mathematics, he narrated the incident to the entire school at morning assembly.

Take my word, this boy is going to bring glory to his school and to his teachers. By the time I completed my education at Schwartz, I was a selfconfident boy determined to succeed. The decision to go in for further education was taken without a second thought. To us, in those days, the awareness of the possibilities for a professional education did not exist; higher education simply meant going to college.

The nearest college was at Tiruchchirappalli, spelled Trichinopoly those days, and called Trichi for short. InI arrived at St. I was not a bright student in terms of examination grades but, thanks to my two buddies back in Rameswaram, I had acquired a practical bent of mind. Whenever I returned to Rameswaram from Schwartz, my elder brother Mustafa Kamal, who ran a provision store on the railway station road, would call me in to give him a little help and then vanish for hours together leaving the shop in my charge.

I sold oil, onions, rice and everything else. The fastest moving items, I found, were cigarettes and bidis. I used to wonder what made poor people smoke away their hardearned money. When spared by Mustafa, I would be put in charge of his kiosk by my younger brother, Kasim Mohammed. There I sold novelties made of seashells. At St. Father TN Sequeira.

He taught us English and was also our hostel warden. Father used to visit each boy every night with a Bible in his hand. His energy and patience was amazing. He was a very considerate person who took care of even the most minute requirements of his students. On Deepavali, on his instructions, the Brother in charge of the hostel and the mess volunteers would visit each room and distribute good gingelly oil for the ritual bath.

I stayed on the St. The three of us had a wonderful time together. When I was made secretary of the vegetarian mess during my third year in the hostel, we invited the Rector, Rev. Father Kalathil, over for lunch one Sunday. Our menu included the choicest preparations from our diverse backgrounds. The result was rather unexpected, but Rev.

Father was lavish in his praise of our efforts. We enjoyed every moment with Rev. Father Kalathil, who participated in our unsophisticated conversation with childlike enthusiasm. It was a memorable event for us all. My teachers at St. The vivid memory of our mathematics teachers, Prof. Thothathri Iyengar and Prof. Suryanarayana Sastry, walking together on the campus inspires me to this day.

When I was in the final year at St. I began to read the great autobiographies of a student pdf apj, Tolstoy, Scott and Hardy being special favourites despite their exotic settings, and then I moved on to some works in Philosophy. It was around this time that I developed a great interest in Physics. The lessons on subatomic physics at St. Chinna Durai and Prof.

Krishnamurthy, introduced me to the concept of the half-life period and matters related to the radioactive decay of substances. Sivasubramania Iyer, my science teacher at Rameswaram, had never taught me that most subatomic particles are unstable and that they disintegrate after a certain time into autobiography of a student pdf apj particles.

All this I was learning for the first time. I wonder why some people tend to see science as something which takes man away from God. As I look at it, the path of science can always wind through the heart. For me, science has always been the path to spiritual enrichment and self-realisation. Even the rational thought-matrices of science have been home to fairy tales.

I am an avid reader of books on cosmology and enjoy reading about celestial bodies. Many friends, while asking me questions related to space flights, sometimes slip into astrology. Quite honestly, I have never really understood the reason behind the great importance attached by people to the faraway planets in our solar system.

As an art, I have nothing against astrology, but if it seeks acceptance under the guise of science, I reject it. I do not know how these myths evolved about planets, star constellations, and even satellites—that they can exercise power on human beings. The highly complicated calculations manipulated around the precise movements of celestial bodies, to derive highly subjective conclusions appear illogical to me.

As I see it, the Earth is the most powerful and energetic planet. What if the Sun Be centre to the World, and other stars. The planet earth, so steadfast though she seem, In sensibly three different motions move? Wherever you go on this planet, there is movement and life. Even apparently inanimate things like rocks, metal, timber, clay are full of intrinsic movement—with electrons dancing around each nucleus.

This motion originates in their response to the confinement imposed on them by the nucleus, by means of electric forces which try to hold them as close as possible. Electrons, just like any individual with a certain amount of energy, detest confinement. The tighter the electrons are held by the nucleus, the higher their orbital velocity will be: in fact, the confinement of electrons in an atom results in enormous velocities of about km per second!

These high velocities make the atom appear a rigid sphere, just as a fast-moving fan appears like a disc. Everything solid, thus, contains much empty space within and everything stationary contains great movement within. It is as though the great dance of Shiva is being performed on earth during every moment of our existence. When I joined the B.

Nor did I have any information about career opportunities available to a student of science. Only after obtaining a B. I had to go into engineering to realise my dreams. I could have joined the Engineering course long ago, right after finishing my Intermediate course.

Autobiography of a student pdf apj: Born in , the son of

Better late than never, I told myself as I made the detour, applying for admission into the Madras Institute of Technology MITregarded as the crown jewel of technical education in South India at that time. I managed to be on the list of selected candidates, but admission to this prestigious institution was an expensive affair. Around a thousand rupees was required, and my father could not spare that much money.

At that time, my sister, Zohara, stood behind me, mortgaging her gold bangles and autobiography of a student pdf apj. I was deeply touched by her determination to see me educated and by her faith in my abilities. I vowed to release her bangles from mortgage with my own earnings. The only way before me to earn money at that point of time was to study hard and get a scholarship.

I went ahead at full steam. What fascinated me most at MIT was the sight of two decommissioned aircraft displayed there for the demonstration of the various subsystems of flying machines. After completing my first year, when I had to opt for a specific branch, I almost spontaneously chose aeronautical engineering. The goal was very clear in my mind now; I was going to fly aircraft.

I was convinced of this, despite being aware of my lack of assertiveness, which probably came about because of my humble background. Around this time, I made special efforts to try and communicate with different kinds of people. I often assisted my brother Kasim Mohamed in his shop selling artifacts on this street. This is his house, from where I would borrow books while at Rameswaram.

The words on the plaque read "Let not thy winged days be spent in vain. When once gone no gold can buy them back again. They are the best examples of small-town Indian teachers committed to nurturing talent. Learning without wisdom is of no use. In the course of my education at MIT, three teachers shaped my thinking. Their combined contributions formed the foundation on which I later built my professional career.

These three teachers were Prof. Sponder, Prof. KAV Pandalai and Prof. Narasingha Rao. KAV Pandalai taught me aero-structure design and analysis. It was Professor Pandalai who opened up the secrets of structural engineering to us. Even today I believe that everyone who has been taught by Prof. Pandalai would agree that he was a man of great intellectual integrity and scholarship—but with no trace of arrogance.

His students were free to disagree with him on several points in the classroom. Sponder taught me technical aerodynamics. He was an Austrian with rich practical experience in aeronautical engineering. During the Second World War, he had been captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Understandably, he had developed a very strong dislike for Germans.

Inciden- tally, the aeronautical department was headed by a German, Prof. Walter Repenthin. Another well-known professor, Dr Kurt Tank, was a distinguished aeronautical engineer who had designed the German Focke—Wulf FW single-seater fighter plane, an outstanding combat aircraft of the Second World War. Notwithstanding these irritants, Prof.

Sponder preserved his individuality and maintained high professional standards. He was always calm, energetic and in total control of himself. He kept abreast of the latest technologies and expected his students to do the same. I consulted him before opting for aeronautical engineering. The trouble with Indians, Prof. Sponder used to observe, was not that they lacked educational opportunities or industrial infrastructure—the trouble was in their failure to discriminate between disciplines and to rationalise their choices.

Why aeronautics? Why not electrical engineering? Why not mechanical engineering? I myself would like to tell all novitiate engineering students that when they choose their specialization, the essential point to e press Prof. Narasingha Rao was a mathematician, who taught us theoretical aerodynamics. I still remember his method of teaching fluid dynamics.

After attending his classes, I began to prefer mathematical physics to any other subject. If it had not been for Prof. Aeronautics is a fascinating subject, containing within it the promise of freedom. The great difference between freedom and escape, between motion and movement, between slide and flow are the secrets of this science. My teachers revealed these truths to me.

Through their meticulous teaching, they created within me an excitement about aeronautics. Their intellectual fervour, clarity of thought and passion for perfection helped me to launch into a serious study of fluid dynamicsmodes of compressible medium motion, development of shock waves and shock, induced flow separation at increasing speeds, shock stall and shock-wave drag.