Strong Roots — APJ ABDUL KALAM
1]WHY WAS KALAMS CHILDHOOD SPIRITUALLY AND MATERIALLY SECURED?
The essay “The strong Roots” has been extracted from the very first chapter of the much-celebrated autobiography of APJ. Kalam “The Wings Of Fire
A P J Kalam came off in the island town of Rameswaram in an erstwhile madras state. He was a boy from a middle-class Tamil family. In Rameswaram Kalams’s family lived in their ancestral house which was made of lime stone and bricks. Moreover, it was very large. Kalam’s father was Jainulabdeen, an austere man. He had innate wisdom, though he had not any formal education. He avoided all inessential comforts and luxuries, but he always provided essential things like food, medicines, and clothes. His mother was Ashiamma who fed a number of outsiders in her home. Kalam always ate with his mother, sitting on the floor. Kalam’s father brought kalam every day to a nearby mosque what helped Kalam to strengthen his spiritual mentality. In fact, Kalam got the lesson of love, affection, generosity, and practicality from his parents that made his childhood both materially and emotionally secured.
2)Justify the title of ‘The strong ROOTS’
The essay “The strong Roots” has been extracted from the very first chapter of the much-celebrated autobiography of APJ. Kalam “The Wings Of Fire” .
This part describes his mother’s generosity, his father’s religious wisdom, and his community’s communal harmony. His mother’s generous s “spirit, and his father’s religious beliefs and practical wisdom have made him a perfect man. He had a very secure childhood both materially and emotionally, which helped him to learn the lesson on universality, fraternity, humanity, and divinity. This lesson makes him like a full-fledged tree i.e THE TREE OF WISDOM. Actually, Kalam was the tree and his parents were the roots of the tree. A tree becomes big when its roots become strong and supply proper nutrients . Similarly, Kalam becomes a legend because he got proper grooming from his parents just like the roots . Hence the title of this part of the autobiography is apt and appropriate.
3)How does Kalam describe his father’s routine life?
Kalam has expressed great admiration for his father. He has said father led a very austere life and avoided all inessential comforts.Here Kalam has described his father’s disciplined life.Kalam recollects that his father, Jainulabdeen started his day at four am by reading the namaz before dawn. Thereafter he walked down to a small coconut grove which belonged to them. The coconut grove was about four miles away from their ancestral house.He returned with about dozen of coconuts tied together thrown over his shoulder and then he would have his breakfast. Thus the routine was maintained by him even when he was late sixties
4)Jainulabdeen attitude to adversity
In ‘The wings of fire’ we find not only events of In kalam’s life but his philosophical insight into life as well.Besides being a scientist, he had enormous knowledge in the field of human philosophy.
His father had not any formal education, but he had profound innate wisdom. Here is a another very good example of his wisdom.
He believed that adversities provide the vest opportunities for introspection. So one should try to understand the reasons of his troubles instead of getting afraid of it. One can truly judge the mistakes that one makes.According to Kalam’s father , owing to their natural instict,human beings look for help and company of others, when they find themseves alone in the grip if dufficultues. They need someone to show them way out. Every troubled people wants a helper to show them the way to overcome their sufferings.
Here Jainulabdeen played the role of the helper.He satisfied the demonic forces by offerings and prayers. But he said that it was not a correct approach . He advised, Insted of this a person should understand the fear ridden vision of future and the enemies that prevent that person to reach his goal, then that person should remove those enemies to reach his goal instead of being feared his future outcomes.
Kalam followed this philosophical vision throughout his life in his world of sciece and he was convincrd that thete is devine power which always lifts a person from his adversities and leads the person to the true way o his life.
STRONG ROOTS