VK Saraswat | Vijay Kumar Saraswat

All of us have good days and bad days. Some days things just don’t go as planned and we end up losing our cool and our temper. Professionally though, this is definitely going to be frowned upon. In the real work space, we are expected to be courteous, disciplined and polite, losing our temper is not something that goes well with our peers and our superiors. A true leader or manager then, is one who gets the best out of his team, without letting them feel any lesser about themselves. Dr. Kalam was regarded as a father figure by all.  His style was never confrontational and he had a vast reserve of patience.  He always worked towards building a consensus rather than ramming down decisions.  He rarely lost his cool.  If someone upset him, all he would say were terms like “Funny Guy” / “Who is the hero?”  and “ Get me that famous mechanic.” On the days that he did end up being displeased, his style of showing it was unique.  The Prithvi-03 flight h...

Almost every achiever is asked at least once who his/her inspiration or role model is. We often look up to someone for their admirable qualities and look to inculcate the same in our lives.   Dr. Kalam often told that he had three Gurus, namely, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Dr. Sateesh Dhawan and Dr. Brahm Prakash.   He always acknowledged their contribution in his growth.   I remember him saying he learnt the importance of having a vision from the Dynamic Dr.Sarabhai. From the no-nonsense Dhawan he fathomed how to convert a simple vision into a mission and evolve fail-safe systems.   And from the soft spoken Brahm Prakash, the first Director of VSSC, he learnt the art of converting the mission on hand into achievable goals. It just goes to say dreams aren’t enough; dreams that become goals are what matter. All these qualities made Dr. Kalam an outstanding manager of technology – a rare quality . But the most important quality his mentors taught him was, how to ha...

Success is never a one-step goal. It takes years of hard work, sleepless nights, earlier mornings than everyone else, it means rising up with the sun even though you need to keep working long after the sun has set. For those who believe in the glory of their goals though, the sun never sets. Today’s post features Dr.Kalam and Liquid Propulsion technology. While his reservations about liquid Propulsion technology were first witnessed by me during his visit to DRDL in 1973 as a member of the team lead by Prof. Satish Dhawan to review the  SAM-2 (Devil) project, I faced the same when he first reviewed the configuration of Prithvi Missile in 1983 after taking over as Director DRDL and Programme Director, IGMDP.  By this time, we had already static tested the Boiler Plate Version of Propulsion Stage of Prithvi.  Dr. Kalam felt that the LP System was too complex and less reliable, and suggested  that we switch over to Solid Propulsion.  I had explai...