Few years back when I read a book about Tatas I realized that we know little about Indian Achievers, I got interested in reading more such books.
Recently I bought from Landmark a book titled Vikram Sarabhai “A Life” by Amrita Shah. Before reading it, I knew little about Dr.Vikram Sarabhai other than he was a popular scientist and father of Indian Space Program that too by reading about him in Dr.A.B.J.Abdul Kalams’ Wings of Fire book. As the book says I too had vague remembrance of him and confused his achievements with Dr.Homi Bhabha – the father of Indian Nuclear program. Please don’t ask what happened to reading about these people in my School days, I honestly remember nothing of that :-)
The first thing that struck me while I started the book, the short life the man has lived (1919-71) and within that 50 years of life the amazing number of things he has achieved. He has founded numerous organizations – ISRO, IIM-Ahmedabad, ATIRA (Textile Research), PRL apart from running successfully his family business Sarabhai Chemicals and other business houses. He was also a successful scientist with many papers and a PhD on Cosmic Rays.
What a life this man has lived, which every Indian has to be proud of!
A must read book for people interested – but this book is not a complete biography, skips on his college days and the author Amrita Shah has put together pieces from her own research, what she heard from others and joining the dots on what could have been Dr.Sarabhai’s thinking at various points.
vikram sarabhai – a life