Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam: Memories Revisited by Debasish Chakraborti Published in Re-Markings, March 2019 - www.re-markings.com

                                      Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam: Memories Revisited

Debasish Chakraborti

My eventful journey in DRDO since 1985 landed me to a premier laboratory named ADRDE, Agra as Director. Among other things, I was happy to meet two erudite scholars of Agra College, Agra, Dr. Nibir K. Ghosh and Dr. Sunita. It is Nibirda who has motivated me to write about the illustrious personality of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam with whatever experience I gathered as a scientist. I humbly offer the following reminiscences as a tribute to one of the most worthy sons of Mother India.

It happened to be a rainy morning at Chandigarh DRDO guest house, when I saw our chief of DRDO, Dr. Kalam taking a stroll in the midst of deep clouds, quite relaxed with rain water gently sprinkling his head. About 2/3 weeks ago, the country had witnessed “Pokhran-II” — the nuclear experiment at Rajasthan under the able stewardship of Kalam sir. I quickly got down and congratulated him on the success of Pokhran. On the same afternoon at the lunch table along with young scientists from DRDO, Dr. Kalam put up two specific questions to the youngsters. One was, “Why has India always been the target country for all invaders including a small country like Portugal?” and the second one, “Why India always, almost all the times, has given in to the invaders?” The questions were simple but intellectually loaded and it still hovers on me to find the most appropriate reasons and answers to both the questions in this jigsaw puzzle of information blast in the world. However, one thing was certain that he had kindled the quest to know our country and serve it with all righteousness.

I asked him on the same day, whether this nuclear test was indeed a priority for the country which has been facing all kinds of problems like poverty, malnutrition, health, education and Roti-Kapda-Makan. “Good Question” was his impromptu response in his usual way … but his answer to the question startled me a lot. He said: “The U.S.A. administration has rolled the heads, since they could not anticipate/predict this great event and at the same time in the American media, probably for the first time, they talked about ‘nuclear fission experiment in India’ several times, which is a homegrown technology.” He reiterated, “technology is strength, and strength respects strength.” This is how this great man, whom I knew for quite a long time in relation to Defence R&D works, remained embedded in my mind, as a leader and facilitator for harnessing indigenous technologies for self- reliance of the nation.

We had been working in the field of antiship and antisubmarine torpedoes in the DRDO Laboratory, NSTL, Visakhapatnam for quite long. I still remember the day, when DRDO chief Dr. Kalam sanctioned the torpedo project a very paltry sum of Rs. 30 crores with 5 years duration when the country did not possess the infrastructure of underwater acoustic ranges — which all other torpedo developing nations used to have, specifically U.S.A., that had invested almost about Rs 1000 crore for the Range. Our scientists worked day and night on developing the technology of light weight and heavy weight torpedoes. As expected, lot of technological challenges were faced by us and we started exploring the gap between theory and practice at field trials at sea, where torpedoes used to sink to the bottom of the sea with no data of failure available to the scientists (since the recorded data also used to be lost in case of torpedo sinking). These setbacks were found to be expensive as well as demotivating for the Scientists. Kalam sir once constituted a committee with veteran scientists of DRDO who had tasted success in their respective fields in Missile programs (namely Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Dr. Prahlada, Dr. S.K. Ray, Admiral Mohan Rao and others) to review and analyse the various problems in torpedo failures at the Laboratory. Exhaustive reviews were conducted in detail and the scientists learnt a lot and made a comprehensive way ahead plans for the project. The torpedo project was getting delayed and the Navy was getting restless to have the weapon on board. Admiral S. Mahapatra from Navy was posted to the Lab and he was instructed to Push the project. Admiral Mohapatra took charge of the laboratory and started giving a momentum to the project with all his leadership skills.

One morning at sea, Dr. Kalam came on board INS Saryu to witness the field trial. Unfortunately, the weather was not congenial for recovery of torpedo and the trial was cancelled by Navy. Dr. Kalam asked me to describe the events starting from the launch tube through the pre-setting till recovery after the underwater run as per the mission requirement. We explained him all the events in detail. I explained to him that water ingress inside the torpedo will make it sink and it is not only the expensive torpedo we lose, we lose the mission run data also, since the black box recording the data comes up to the surface along with the torpedo. Unlike missiles, the underwater acoustic communication cannot be captured above using telemetry. I referred to one important trial at sea after implementing some improvements in the design based on his review. The torpedo was supposed to be surfacing after 8 minutes of run underwater but the weapon was not sighted by the helicopter. I had no control on torpedo and therefore submitted to God and started writing “Om Sri Saraswatyai namo” in the ship’s wardroom several times when suddenly the ship announcement came up: “torpedo sighted and being recovered” — what a joy for us at that moment! After listening to this story,  Dr. Kalam quipped, “How many times have you written that shloka before it was recovered?” I said it was 44 times, but not 9,11,13 etc. as normally the rituals go in pujas. Sir said, “I understand your agony and anxiety…but immediately thereafter with a pause, he pulled me up with humour … “Why not you make a suitable program with that shloka 44 times and get it embedded to torpedo onboard computer OBC so that such failure will never happen?” We laughed with him and realised that he happens to be one of us and he generates the light moments and  the required frequency to resonate with scientists of all ranks. However, with great motivation, subsequently thereafter we progressed on the project well and we are proud to have inducted an indigenous  light weight torpedo (TAL) and one heavy weight torpedo (Varunastra)  into Indian Navy as on date. Dr. Kalam was a great leader and motivator to all the scientists for such mission of harnessing indigenous technologies for the security of the nation. 

Once, Dr. Kalam came for a visit to the laboratory for a review of projects and we displayed the critical technology hardware as exhibits. Our Director was explaining the things and we were standing there for any clarifications. At one point in one of the exhibits of high energy density battery, he told our Director, “Admiral, let us listen from this young scientist, let him explain, let us see how he does it, is that ok?“ Admiral said … “yes sir.” He always used to inspire and motivate the young scientists in his own usual way. He used to ask them, ”what do you feel, what are the scope for improvement, have we benchmarked it with the global state of art technologies? Where are the gaps?” Whenever he used to come for visit to the laboratory, program itinerary would be sent to him … and invariably he made changes. Suppose we said the program would start at 0900 hrs … he would change it and say that he intended to have discussion with all young scientists and technical officers at 0630 hrs and the agenda would be spelt out by him at that time. He would have discussions on Decoys — the countermeasure for torpedoes … he asked us, what we were thinking about our torpedoes to be intelligent enough not to get decoyed by our adversaries. How the scientists were thinking of making the torpedo stealthier … or how to increase the speed of the torpedo … can we achieve missile speed underwater? etc etc. We used to reflect on all these points in the lab and thus make value addition to the product to the extent feasible. Quite often, he used to say “think out of the box, dream big but at the same time please wake up and toil to realise it.”

On one occasion our Director wanted him to address all officers and staff of NSTL in a very short time available to him at Vizag. In the same address, he said “what you want me to say to your officers? You are all good guys ... keep working etc etc?” For a change, he said “I would rather request you to introspect and ask yourselves, what all important things you guys are not doing, what all you need to work and improve. Please make a way ahead document project-wise with timelines. I will look into it when I come next to the laboratory.” — This was his way to synergise the scientific community. A very simple way to pass the message to scientists to shun complacency.

Dr. Kalam worked tirelessly for achieving self-reliance in the field of Defence research and development, boosted DRDO in the IGMDP (Integrated and guided missile development program) and became the Missile Man of India. Simple living and high thinking coupled with the urge of serving the nation has always been his forte.

The time passed by and Dr. Kalam was elevated to the level of Chief scientific advisor to the Prime Minister.

One morning, 25th July 2002, the dawn saw him rise as the first citizen of India — the Rashtrapati — the President of India. We were indeed excited to witness the recognition bestowed on him by the nation. An honest individual, a simple and kind soul, a visionary, an  eternal learner and a Teacher with scientific background took the oath to serve the nation. The story beyond is all well known to the countrymen. His emotional and iconic connectivity with the youth and children of India is widely known and appreciated. We were proud to see that our leader and mentor had become the leader of the nation. Subsequently He was conferred the country’s highest award, Bharat Ratna in the year 2013. 

We met him last as President when he came to Visakhapatnam and visited our laboratory NSTL, saw our progress of works and then  addressed all the school children of Vizag at Manasi Auditorium as President. The representative children from all the schools of Vizag gathered in the auditorium along with their teachers. The President of India stepped on to the dais with a thunderous applause and claps from all the students, which kept on resounding in the auditorium for a long time. He too joined the children in clapping till it sopped little later to a dead silence. He needed no introduction — by this time, Dr. Kalam had got introduced to all the children and youth of the country by his arduous interaction with them in social media.

Breaking the silence, he asked the children ... “how many of you have seen bumble bee in the natural parks?” So many children responded and explained how the bumble bee looks like, spherical in shape and wings to fly etc. However, one child retorted ... he had not been to any natural parks, so he did not see a bumble bee. The Pesident asked … “who is your class teacher?“  The class teacher got up. Kalam sir said to the teacher, “Please take the children to some natural surroundings at least twice a year, ok? This is Presidential order ok?“ Then he continued, “if you take this bumble bee shape to any aerodynamicist … he would say, this cannot fly … No? it does not have the aerodynamic shape…. So my dear children … how does it fly?”— all the children one after the other was trying to give some explanation in their own way … He said. “see, all of you are trying to see the reason, you all are flying … so, what is the bottom line? The bottom line is that the bumble bee wishes to fly … If you all wish to fly in your respective fields, if you want to take our nation ahead with innovative science and technologies …. YOU ALL WILL FLY and our nation will be proud of you.”

What an inspiring message! A thundering applause again—all of us present there discovered an honest man, a visionary, a thinker, a patriot—a humble soul with huge eternal power—the real hero—The Leader of the nation, the Bharat Ratna—Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam who has made us proud to be a citizen of this great nation. 

·        Debasish Chakraborti is an Outstanding Scientist (Scientist H) who has to his credit one Indian and one Russian patent granted on Floating Recorder and Transmitter. With a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cranfield Institute of Technology, U.K., he began his eventful career with Indian Oxygen Limited, Kolkata before moving on to DRDO at the Naval Science and Technological Laboratory NSTL, Visakhapatnam in 1985. At the DRDO he has worked on several prestigious assignments before joining as Director, Aerial Delivery Research & Development Establishment (ADRDE), Agra. He is a distinguished Fellow of Indian Institute of Engineers. His special contributions relate to Paratrooper parachute systems, Brake and seat ejection Parachute systems for all fighter aircrafts, including LCA for Indian Army and Airforce, Aerostat Surveillance systems and Tactical Aerostat. He has also worked on Airship development and Parachute System for Human Space Program of ISRO. 

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Published in Re-Markings Vol 18 No.1 March 2019

Copyright Nibir K Ghosh 2019

www.re-markings.com

                                                              Debasish Chakraborti & Dr. Paromita