My childhood(A.P.J Abdul Kalam)
1. I was born into a middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile madras state.My father, Jainulabdeen ,had neither much formal education nor much wealth,despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal helpmate in my mother , Ashimmma . I do not recall the exact number of people she fed every day, but I am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with us than the all the members of our own family put together .
2 . I was one of many children - a short boy with rather undistinguished looks,born to tall and handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house, which was build in the middle of the nineteenth century. It was a fairly large pucca house , made of limestone and brick , on the mosque street in Rameswaram . My austere father used to avoid all inessential comforts and luxuries .However , all necessities were provide for , in terms of food , medicine or clothes In fact, I would say mine was a very secure childhood , both materially and emotionally.
3. The second world war broke out in 1939 , when 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. A day's collection would fetch me the princely sum of one Anna. My brother-in-law 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 force 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 my cousin Samsuddin , to look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and , as if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me earn my first wages . Half a century later , I can still feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for the first time.
4. Every child is born, with some inherited characteristics, into 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 . 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 difference and upbringing, In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the Rameswaram temple. 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 become a catering contractor for the southern Railways.
Our family (NCRT)
5. 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 Sita, situated in the middle of the pound called Rama Tirth which was near my 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.
Mychildhood
6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the Rameswaram Elementary School 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 the sacred thread. the new teacher could not stomach a Hindu priest's son sitting with a Muslim boy. In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha Sastry. 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.
classroom A.P.J.Abdul Kalam
7. 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 communal intolerance in the mind of innocent children. He bluntly asked the teacher to either apologies 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.
8. On the whole, the small society of Rameswaram was very rigid in term of the segregation of different social groups. However, my science teacher Sivasubramania lyer, 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. He used to spend hours with me and would say, "Kalam, I want you to develop so that you are on par with the highly educated people of the big cities"
9. One day, he invited me to his home for a meal. 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 lyer was not perturbed, nor did he get to 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 the behind the kitchen door. I wondered whether she has 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 lyer invited me to join him for dinner again the next weekend. Observing my hesitation, he told me not to get upset, saying, "Once you decide to change the system, such problem have to be confronted." When I visited his house the next week, Sivasubramania lyre's wife took me inside her kitchen and served me food with her own hands.
classroom A.P.J.Abdul Kalam
10. Then the Second World War was over and Indian's freedom was imminent. "Indian will build their own India," declared Gandhiji. The whole country was filled with an unprecedented optimism. I asked my father for permission to leave Rameswaram and study at the district headquarters in Rameswaram.
11. He told me as if thinking aloud. "Abul ! I know you have to go away to grow. Does the seagull not fly across the sun, alone and without a nest?" He quoted khalil Gibran my hesitant mother, " your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts."
3. The second world war broke out in 1939 , when 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. A day's collection would fetch me the princely sum of one Anna. My brother-in-law 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 force 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 my cousin Samsuddin , to look for a helping hand to catch the bundles and , as if naturally, I filled the slot. Samsuddin helped me earn my first wages . Half a century later , I can still feel the surge of pride in earning my own money for the first time.
4. Every child is born, with some inherited characteristics, into 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 . 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 difference and upbringing, In fact, Ramanadha Sastry was the son of Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, the high priest of the Rameswaram temple. 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 become a catering contractor for the southern Railways.
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| Our family (NCRT) |
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| Mychildhood |
6. One day when I was in the fifth standard at the Rameswaram Elementary School 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 the sacred thread. the new teacher could not stomach a Hindu priest's son sitting with a Muslim boy. In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit on the back bench. I felt very sad, and so did Ramanadha Sastry. 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.
 |
| classroom A.P.J.Abdul Kalam |
7. 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 communal intolerance in the mind of innocent children. He bluntly asked the teacher to either apologies 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.
8. On the whole, the small society of Rameswaram was very rigid in term of the segregation of different social groups. However, my science teacher Sivasubramania lyer, 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. He used to spend hours with me and would say, "Kalam, I want you to develop so that you are on par with the highly educated people of the big cities"
9. One day, he invited me to his home for a meal. 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 lyer was not perturbed, nor did he get to 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 the behind the kitchen door. I wondered whether she has 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 lyer invited me to join him for dinner again the next weekend. Observing my hesitation, he told me not to get upset, saying, "Once you decide to change the system, such problem have to be confronted." When I visited his house the next week, Sivasubramania lyre's wife took me inside her kitchen and served me food with her own hands.
 |
| classroom A.P.J.Abdul Kalam |
10. Then the Second World War was over and Indian's freedom was imminent. "Indian will build their own India," declared Gandhiji. The whole country was filled with an unprecedented optimism. I asked my father for permission to leave Rameswaram and study at the district headquarters in Rameswaram.
11. He told me as if thinking aloud. "Abul ! I know you have to go away to grow. Does the seagull not fly across the sun, alone and without a nest?" He quoted khalil Gibran my hesitant mother, " your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts."
(- A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM)
[an extract from Wings of Fire]
[an extract from Wings of Fire]
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