Skip to main content

My Days With Dr. Kalam - Lessons in Range Safety | VK Saraswat

This is the second part of my series on my days with Dr. Kalam. As someone who’s spent a huge chunk of my career working with him on various of India’s missile missions , I have been lucky to know him, work with him and see him in action.

October 15th was the first posthumous birth anniversary of Dr. Kalam, it was a nostalgic time for those of us who worked with him. He would never ask for any showy gifts or ceremonies on his birthdays, I remember. To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal, He would always say. That takes me back to our time at SHAR where we worked in Dr. Kalam’s team and learned Range Safety in the development of missiles.

In this post I speak about lessons in Range Safety. Range Safety is an integral part of missile testing and is a prerequisite to the development of missile. During 1972-79, I had participated in many flight tests of Devil (SAM-2) missiles as part of the indigenous development of SAM-2 but was never exposed to the requirement of Range Safety and Mission Safety.

During the prep stage of the surface to surface missile version of SAM-II (SA-45) to evaluate strap down navigation system in 1983-84, a pet project of Late Shri P. Banerjee, Dr. Kalam insisted on having a review of all aspects of Range Safety and expressed concern about handling of propellants, pyros and high pressure systems in the missile.

DRDL had never paid much attention to these aspects.  I do not know why, but he nominated me to interact with the SHAR team and to work out the details in consultation with them.  During this campaign, I learned all about Mission Safety and came to establish a good working relationship with SHAR Safety Chief Shri Shankar.

But this wasn’t the situation initially. We were a new team at SHAR and observed that the approach to certain procedures at SHAR was different than what we were accustomed to at DRDL.  Many conflicting situations arose due to differences in approach to safety in DRDL and that at SHAR.  Dr. Kalam keenly observed my approach particularly when Shankar followed the attitude of a big brother reducing the DRDL to an object of ridicule on more than one occasion.  Since we were a new team at SHAR, this wasn’t very motivating for us neither did we feel very welcomed. But, Dr. Kalam’s presence and win-win approach to conflict resolution helped resolve all our crises. His quiet manner and calm demeanor stood superior to any differences of opinions, he showed us how to plan our approaches for the best results. For me it wasn’t just a crash course in “Safety Engineering” but also a huge one in Conflict Management and People Management.

This is how Dr. Kalam trained us as a  team from DRDL to take up leadership in a multi-organisational Integrated Guided Missile Programme. Opinions often differ when many different-minded individuals work on a project, but Dr. Kalam showed us how the success of the team and focussing on the end goal is bigger than any other differences, big or small.

Kudos to this man, his memory will always live on in our lives every time we think of these little lessons that made us better scientists, better planners and better individuals.

-84 years of Dr. Kalam.

Comments

  1. Unknown29 October 2015 at 00:01

    Sir you are lucky that you work with such great personality

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown29 October 2015 at 00:03

    Sir really you are lucky that you work with such a great percenalty

    ReplyDelete
  3. DeepThought29 October 2015 at 10:55

    Thanks sir for sharing the experience, it is one such example that brings out the great leadership and human qualities that make Dr Kalam sir unique

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Day In My Life - Glimpses of my recently concluded Rajasthan Trip

Rajasthan has always held a special place in my life, so when I was scheduled to travel there recently, I was quite looking forward to the trip. It was a three-day trip and I went about appointments as usual. A lot of my readers were asking me to write a post on some of the talks and seminars I’ve been a part of so I thought this trip would be a good place to start. I reached Rajasthan late on the 29th of August and prepped for a couple of meetings the next day.  It  was a bright sunny morning as always and after a quick morning routine I headed to meet Professor Bhatia , (Vice Chancellor, Poornima University) and Dr. Prabhat Pankaj, Director, Jaipuria Institute of Management for the convocations held in their respective institutions. It was pleasant to meet the vibrant young graduates who will soon shape the face of our country.                                    ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Early life of Dr. V. K .Saraswat - Fighting stage fear

My position demands quite a lot of public speaking and addressing events and conventions, and other such public events. Almost often, I get invited to speak at the dais, facing the audience and the cameras to give my opinion or something, to speak of a decision made or to announce plans made by the body I’m currently associated with. I must say, that I’ve come to see it as a privilege today more than I did years ago, where I would tremble at the very thought of having to speak in front of an audience. It’s but natural, I think, for when we’re children to be afraid of public speaking. Some call it stage fear, some say “you’re a shy child” when we refuse to perform in front of relatives who come home while sometimes, you’re just a taciturn of sorts. Stage fright may be a small issue while growing up, but later often manifests itself in many ways - you may not be an active participant in college activities, you may not be very confident in job interviews and you may not be ...
2 comments
Read more

My take on Inclusive Growth – Part 2 ( ISB Dean Speaker series

  While growth still remains the most important parameter of any poverty reduction attempt, inclusive growth is basically related to redistributive growth. Inclusive development creates opportunities for all segments of the society in health, education, skill development, jobs, reducing poverty, entrepreneurship etc. on the principle of equality and focuses on outcomes and processes involving people’s participation and benefit-sharing. While one can’t have Economic Development without economic growth, GDP is not the only indicator of prosperity. A clear example of this statement are countries like China and India who have huge GDPs but lag behind in areas like health, overall wellness and life-expectancy among others. An inclusive green economy can reduce poverty and inequality We all aspire to reach better living conditions, yet this will not be possible by following the current growth model. We need a practical, 21 st century development model tha...
Post a Comment
Read more