In the small pilgrim town of Rameswaram, a young boy named Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam woke before dawn each day to distribute newspapers, helping support a family that had little money to spare. School fees were a stretch. A career in science, for a boy like him, seemed like a distant fantasy.
He didn't let that stop him from dreaming specifically — he wanted to build things that flew. He studied physics and aerospace engineering against long odds, and joined India's fledgling space and defence research programs at a time when the country barely had the infrastructure to support them.
He led the team behind India's first satellite launch vehicle, and later the missile programs that earned him the nickname 'Missile Man of India.' Colleagues remember him not as a distant genius, but as someone who sat on the floor with junior engineers, ate in the same canteen, and genuinely celebrated other people's ideas louder than his own.
In 2002, the newspaper boy from Rameswaram was sworn in as the eleventh President of India. Even in the president's house, he kept things almost monk-like — few possessions, most of his salary donated, and a habit of personally answering letters from schoolchildren until the very end of his life.