In accordance with our social ranking as the new teacher saw it, I was asked to go and sit at the backbench. The new teacher could not stomach a Hindu priest’s son sitting with a Muslim boy. 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. One day when I was in the fifth standard at Rameswaram Elementary School, a new teacher came to our class. One of the most vivid memories of my early childhood is of the two men, each in his traditional attire, discussing spiritual matters. The high priest of Rameswaram temple, Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, was a very close friend of my father’s. Our locality was predominantly Muslim, but there were quite a few Hindu families too, living amicably with their Muslim neighbours.

The famous Shiva temple, which made Rameswaram so sacred to pilgrims, was about a ten-minute walk from our house. The initial chapters provide an interesting glimpse of the religious harmony which existed before India’s partition. Kalam was born in Rameswaram, a southern religious town in Tamilnadu. I loved the initial chapters of Wings of Fire since it gives a vivid picture of our country during the 1930 – the 1950s. It was very engaging initially but tended to drag a bit towards the end with a lot of technical details and procedural information about his space research and missile projects.

I recently picked up a copy and read it in a couple of days. The book has been very popular in India and has been translated into multiple languages. It is the story of a boy from a humble background who went on to become a key player in Indian space research/Indian missile programs and later became the president of India. Wings of Fire is an autography of APJ Abdul Kalam covering his early life and his work in Indian space research and missile programs.

Apj abdul kalam book wings of fire