Wings of Fire (1999), is the autobiography of the Missile Man of India and President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. It was written by him and Arun Tiwari.
In the autobiography, Kalam examines his early life, effort, hardship, fortitude, luck and chance that eventually led him to lead Indian space research, nuclear and missile programs. Kalam started his career, after graduating from Aerospace engineering at Madras Institute of Technology, at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and was assigned to build a hovercraft prototype. Later he moved to ISRO and helped establish the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and pioneered the first space launch-vehicle program. During the 1990s and early 2000, Kalam moved to the DRDO to lead the Indian nuclear weapons program, with particular successes in thermonuclear weapons development culminating in the operation Smiling Buddha and an ICBM Agni.
Translations
The autobiography first published in English, has so far been translated and published in 13 languages including Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Marathi, and Gujarati. Outside of the major Indian languages, Wings of Fire was translated into Chinese (titled Huo Yi, by Ji Peng), and into French by various translators.
Introduction
Kalam was born on October 15, 1931, the son of a little educated boat owner in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. His father was also imam of the small mosque in Rameswaram. He had an unparalleled career as a defence scientist, culminating in the highest civilian award of India, Bharat Ratna. As chief of the country's defence research and development programmer, Kalam demonstrated a great, great potential for dynamics and innovations that existed in a seemingly moribund research establishment. This is the story of Kalam's own rise from obscurity and his personal and professional struggles, as well as the story of AGNI, TRISHUL, and NAG missiles that have become household names in India and that have raised the nation to the level of a missile power of international reckoning. Since independence, India has sought in various ways, self-realization, adulation, and success.
Orientation
The book begins with the childhood of Kalam's life. In the beginning, he introduces us to his family and tries to familiarize us with his birthplace Rameswaram. In childhood, he was a great admirer of his father, Jainulabdeen. He was a man of great wisdom and kindness, and Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, a close friend of his father and the head priest of the Rameswaram Temple. He had an ideal helpmate in his mother, Ashiamma. He was also influenced by his close friend, Ahmed Jalaluddin; he was about 15 years older than Kalam. With his friend, he talked about spiritual matters. This shows that he believed in spirituality and also believed in God or Khuda. He always went to Lord Shiva's temple with his friends.
In the later part of the opening chapters, he introduces his cousin Samsuddin, his school teachers, and all the people who have felt any difference amongst them. Here he expresses one event, which happened in his school days, a new teacher at his school, 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 backbench. I felt very sad, and so did my 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".