Orientation The section Orientation opens with a quote from the Atharva Veda
This Earth is His, to Him belong those vast and boundless skies Both seas within Him rest, and yet in that small pool He lies. Orientation, the first section of Wings of Fire, spread into first three chapters, covers 32 years of Kalam’s life, from his birth in a middle class Tamil people, Tamil family in the island town of Rameshwaram, his early schooling at Schwartz High School, Ramanathapuram, his undergraduate education at St. Joseph College, Trichy, completion of a degree course in aeronautic engineering from Madras Institute of Technology, and ends with him moving to the United States for a six month training program at NASA.
Creation Section’Creation’ traverses seven chapters, from chapters four to chapter ten; and covers Kalam’s life and work for 17 years, from the year 1963 until 1980. It begins with his recollection of works at the Langley Research Center, NASA, in Houston, Virginia, U.S., and at other facilities in the USA, including the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast of the United States, Virginia. At a NASA facility, he remembers to have seen a painting, prominently displayed in the lobby. The painting depicted a battle scene with rocket flying in the background. On closer examination, he found that the painting depicted Tipu Sultan’s army fighting the British. Kalam felt happy to see an Indian glorified in NASA as a hero of rocketry warfare.
His association with Thumba and Satellite Launch Vehicle and related projects are vividly presented in the section’Creation’. During the period covered under’Creation’, Kalam, in the year 1976, lost his father who lived up to 102 years of age. Kalam took the bereavement with courage and remembered these words written on the death of William Butler Yeats by his friend Auden, and his father: *Earth receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.* The period covered in the section’Creation’ also brought Kalam national recognition. A pleasant surprise came in the form of conferment of Padma Bhushan on the Republic Day, 1981.
Propitiation Section Propitiation covers the period 1981 to 1991, and contains five chapters, from chapter 10 to chapter 14.
This section covers the scientist’s journey towards becoming the “Missile Man of India”. In this section, his excellent leadership qualities as taking up the responsibility of shaping up the Guided Missile Development Program, are clearly visible. In this phase of the life, Kalam was responsible for the development of the five missiles – Prithvi, Trishul, Akash, Nag and the most awaited one Agni. The launch of Agni clearly showed that a developing country could also achieve a stage where she had the option of preventing the wars involving her.
[edit] Contemplation Section Contemplation recounts the life story of Kalam from 1991 until around 1999 in two chapters, namely, chapters 15 and 16. This section opens with words from the Quran
We create and destroy
And again recreate
In forms of which no one knows* [AL-Waquiah Qu’ran 56:61] The last section is narrating the gist of the leadership experiences gathered by the scientist during his work at ISRO and DLDR. This section is more emphasizing on inspiring the youth to recognize their own goals and put their life in to it to achieve the same. One has to recognize the inner voice that suggests the path to his life and that was the key to success for a little boy living in a very small constricted place to became the “Missile Man of India”.