A vibrant octogenarian - thats what describes Dr Kalam best. For a man of 80 summers, Dr. Kalam is extraordinarily full of life even at 8.15 p.m. When some reporters sat down for a freewheeling chat, nay an experience. They ask him about his famous thinking hut at Rashtrapati Bhawan. It is a great place, he says. Two books came out of there. Here, I dont have sufficient area - but everywhere I capture thoughts. His infectious enthusiasm overpowers us all as we hear him talk about how to live a life to its fullest possible potential. Here are the excerpts of his interaction with Team Careers360 Q.Sir, you always say that we must dream big and follow our dreams. What makes one follow ones own dreams? Parents, access or commitment? A.Dreams are finally nothing but goals or mission in life. In my case I had great teachers in various phases of life. And also my parents, my father and mother were very useful teachers to me throughout their lives. I was the only fellow in the family studying, and their ommitment to me was absolute. The spiritual environment at home shaped me. You should convert your goals and mission to success in spite of problems. That is my lifelong commitment. Q.Sir, what is more important, the ability to handle failure or the ability to respond to failures? A.Of course, I have myself gone through many successes and a few failures. And I have also met a number of successful people throughout the world wherever I have gone, and when I discuss with them, they reveal how many problems they have encountered, what kind of failures they have had. So, I have come to the conclusion that great success has some element of failure also. I still remember Prof. Satish Dhawan, he gave me a project in 1973, were you born then?Q.I was born in 73. A.(A burst of laughter) He gave me theSLVproject in 1973, and named me the project director. I found that there were a lot of senior people above me, you know, experienced people, they should support me and there were a number of youngsters with high technical knowledge. So, I had to bring them all together to succeed. At that time I was in my thirties, 39 or 40. So, I was frightened, whether I can do it. Its a great job, how can I do it for the first time, how to build a rocket, to make a satellite, and its a big vision and how can I do it? Q.And the nations expectations were on you? A.A lot of expectation. So then Prof. Satish Dhawan, the chairman saw my hesitation. He called me and gave me some advice, famous advice. He said, Kalam, if you dont do any work, you dont experience any problem. Even in media, if you dont report there is no problem. If you report, problem starts. (He laughs heartily at this). So, Prof.Dhawan said major programmes are always coupled with major problems. But dont allow problems to become your captain, you should become the captain of the problem. Defeat the problem and succeed. This advice he gave me in 1973, even now its true. It is true for politicians, educationists, media people, its true in every area. So, the message Im giving is we should take control of the problems, okay?Q.Sir, why do we find 2/3 of Indias engineering graduates unemployable? What do you think is the underlying problem? A.During my recent visit to Canada I visited a university called Waterloo. For an engineering degree students are taught in the classroom for one year, the next year they go to the industry. So two out of four years they spend in the industry. And in the industry they learn to work within the system, it may be the software system or the hardware system, machine system, electronic system, or chemical system. But they learn to apply what they studied at the university. So when they graduate there is good demand for them. They can hit the ground running. Q.So, it is lack of integration between real-life work and academia that is the problem? A.I want to share with you my own experience. In 1957 I studied aeronautical engineering in Madras Institute of Technology. It was a difficult discipline to get into and we were only nine students. Now, Prof. Srinivasan gave us a six months project in our final year. The project was to design low-level (low altitude, he clarifies) attack fighter aircraft. So, having studied, aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, control, etc., here we have to put them together into a workable aircraft system design. I was the project leader for that. I was the ninth, so eight other people are there, someone would give propulsion, some other aerodynamics etc. So, after four-and-a-half-months of study, I was there in my laboratory. The teacher, my guide comes.see rest in cmnt box...
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 06:38:59 +0000
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