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Ignited minds - Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

 He was a man who had a great vision for India; A man who asked 128 Crore Indians to dream; When I was a kid, people always told me to read books of Kalam sir. Partly because I used to say my ambition was to become a space scientist back then! And APJ was the most popular scientist in Indian. He was well respected among the common folk. Even all the politicians, irrespective of their differences in political opinions respected Dr. Kalam. And I was always looking forward to reading his books. I wanted to buy the his autobiography "Wings of Fire" initially but it was a large book for me. So I chose "Ignited minds" instead. This happened when I was only 12 or 13. I was only getting started into the world of books. So obviously this small book with lot of big words (mostly technical terms) did baffle me and I was demotivated to read further. It didn't matter to me how many rockets he launch or missions he take on, because it looked all the same to me. All his urges to dream and think big and work hard got repetitive for me, so much that I tried to drop the book many times, but the "obsessive compulsive" reader inside me wanted to finish the book one day.

And here I am in 2020 September, after the Covid-19 hit the world. I completed the book a week before but I wanted my thoughts organized before I put them into this blog. Because it's so different now. I mean the experience of reading the book. Because I had lost the optimistic outlook to life and the future of my country that was natural to me when I was young. My dreams and heart had been equally broken into pieces by the journey that is life. Even my patriotism and serving mentality went through a lot of transition. So now when I read the book I could understand him better than ever. I could feel the same flame which is burning in his heart when he talks about India becoming a developed nation, where no one is poor no more.

He did rekindle my desire to dream for my nation and work hard in order alleviate the suffering of the unlucky of our nation. Even though I am sad to see that his dreams about making India developed by 2020 did not reach its fulfilment. But it has not gone in vain. He had been able to wake up many forces that were asleep and ignite their minds.

The book is all about what India should do in order to achieve progress in an accelerated pace. Just like his other works, Wings of fire and Vision 2020. The book is still relevant in today's India as it was 20 years ago. 

If you feel like there is no hope for India, there is no hope for humanity itself then you should read this book. It is the whole package of realistic optimism. Have a good read. 

P.S: I read the Malayalam translation. So the technical terms hit double hard.

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