Discover the Writer in You

  Kabir looked at his watch. The second hand had stopped. He waited, almost expecting it to move if he gave it enough time. It didn’t. Across the office, Rhea was typing. A phone rang near the reception desk. Someone laughed in the conference room. Outside the window, a bus pulled away from the traffic signal. Everything else was moving. Only the watch had fallen silent. Kabir turned his wrist towards the light. The silver case caught the afternoon sun. He held it close to his ear. Nothing. His grandfather had worn the watch for almost forty years. Kabir still remembered his hands winding it every evening, slowly and carefully, as though time could be persuaded to behave. Three days before his grandfather died, he had taken the watch off and placed it in Kabir’s palm. “Take care of it.” Kabir laughed. “I’ll lose it.” “You’ll lose many things,” his grandfather had said. “Don’t lose time.” The memory passed. Kabir looked at the watch again. His chest had begun to tighten. He loosened...

Curtain-raiser Dr Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 in the island town of Rameshwaram. He distributed newspapers as a young boy and his sister mortgaged her gold bangles to support his education in aeronautical engineering. Later, he rose to become the Missile Man of India and the 11th President of the country. His whole life is so inspiring but I have selected 3 stories that leave a deep imprint on our minds and serve to energize us till this day. 1st Story - Mastering the Failures In 1958, Dr Kalam traveled to Dehradun to appear in an interview at the Air Force Selection Board. He loved flying machines from an early age and wanted to be a pilot. However, as luck would have it, he failed in the interview. Armed forces are a personality based organization and he had been brought up in a very humble environment by his parents. So, in his early years, his level of confidence and communication skills were low. This incident so intensely affected the young Kalam that he concluded his life had n...