Looking back at the
life story of a man who was one of the most influential leaders of India in
recent times, we realise something we all know but ignore. He had absolutely no
financial backing. His father was not famous in the village. He was in minority
and was also not a bright student in his school days. He was just “average”
student even in college. He was warned in college that his scholarship would be
stopped, eventually ended up doing a job he was not very keen to do, yet he
became a top scientist of India. So what was his secret?
We all know that as a
President of India he was very humble, down to earth and a simple person. What
we do not know that even when he was a president, he was hard working. At all
levels in life he worked more than his peers and hence progressed more. As an
average student he worked to distribute newspapers and still put in more work
in his studies so he could get scholarship. In college he worked hard to get a
good job. After he got a job we all know about his involvement in making
helicopters, missiles, satellites, nuclear test, etc. Yes he was a genius,
probably he always was gifted and the Indian school system couldn’t recognise
that. However, more than being a genius he was extremely hardworking. This hard
work has made him the leader our country is so proud of.
There is nothing
called ‘lazy genius’. I have come across a lot of people who say I am so
intelligent that I have to work hard. I am afraid that if you want to be
successful in life, you have to work hard, irrespective of your level of
intelligence. In fact APJ Abdul Kalam has proved that you can change your level
of intelligence by putting your blood and sweat in your work. He was not from
an extraordinary school, but the efforts he has put in his building his career
and his country are so extraordinary that he has become a leader only on merit.
Hard work teaches you
humility. I have had the opportunity to meet him twice and his humility and
kindness were something that cannot be taught, only developed. In one of the
speeches he mentioned that once he was sure of the project being successful as
he and his team had worked very hard for 2 years. There were top people in the
team with adequate resources, but it failed. He did not give up on hard work
and 6 months later they were successful.
A simple person with
absolutely no background has today left this world by creating a reputation
which is unparalleled. He has proved that India with her share of one of the
largest poor population in the world has the potential of producing the most brilliant
scientists of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment