Dr APJ Abdul Kalam's birth anniversary: 10 unknown stories of India's 'Missile Man'

The nation is celebrating the 89th birth anniversary of former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam on Thursday (October 15). Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam was born on October 15, 1931, at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. Dr Kalam is an inspiration and role model for generations to come. 

Know 10 unknown stories of India's 'Missile Man'on his birth anniversary:

1. Dr Kalam's childhood dream was to become a fighter pilot for the Indian Air Force but his dreams were shattered when he was ranked 9th when there were only 8 openings in the IAF.

2. India had conducted its first nuclear test on Buddha Jayanti in 1974, the operation was named 'Smiling Buddha'. Kalam had nothing to do with this entire project but Raja Ramanna, who was handling India's nuclear proliferation program after Homi Jahangir Bhabha's death, called Kalam before the test. He was called as a representative of the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) attached to the DRDO.

3. Dr Kalam also used to work on the needs of the common man and kept on making efforts to use technology in order to make necessary items affordable for common people, With the help of Soma Raju, Chairman of Care Hospital, Hyderabad, he had created an affordable coronary stent named 'Kalam-Raju Stent'. 14 years later, in 2102, the two joined hands to design a tablet computer for health care workers in rural areas, which was named as 'Kalam-Raju Tablet'.

4. Dr Kalam died suddenly during a function at IIM Shillong on July 27, 2015. A colleague of Kalam said that his last words were 'Funny guys, are you doing well?

5. He was the only President of India, who was a bachelor, a vegetarian, had no personal TV of his own and lived a very simple life.

6. Dr Kalam's father was an Imam at a mosque and Kalam used to offer Namaz every day. He also used to fast during Ramadan. But in the evening, his father used to have discussions with the priest of Ramnath Swamy temple at a tea shop and the father of a nearby church. Kalam used to hear these discussions and he developed an interest in knowing more about every religion. He also used to read a lot of Hindu scriptures.

7. Dr Kalam considered the head of the Swami Narayan sect as his spiritual guru and he also wrote a book, 'Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Swamiji', about the memories associated with Pramukh Swami. When the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar was attacked by terrorists, Swamiji had sprinkled holy Ganga water on the bodies of each of the victims of the attack and that's what impressed Kalam.

8. When a new bacteria was discovered in the filters of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory International Space Station, it was named 'Solibacillus kalami' in honour of Kalam. The Indian government has also named the site of National Missile Test in Orissa after the name of Dr Kalam.

9. Dr Kalam was the third President to have been awarded the Bharat Ratna even before getting appointed to the top post. Earlier, Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan and Dr Zakir Hussain were also honoured with Bharat Ratna before becoming the President. Dr Kalam received the Bharat Ratna in 1997, while he was elected as President in 2002.

10. There was a lot of controversy regarding mercy petitions during Dr Kalam's presidency. Dr Kalam disposed of only one mercy petition out of 21 during his term. He only rejected the mercy petition of Dhananjay Chatterjee, who was convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl in Kolkata. But Dr Kalam did not take any decision on the other mercy petitions