July 18, 1980: On an island teeming with magnificent migratory birds off the Andhra coast, a tiny pencil-shaped rocket lifts off and heads to the heavens. India becomes only the sixth country in the world capable of launching satellites. A hippie-haired scientist who headed the project team is felicitated.

February 25, 1988: A phallus-shaped missile takes off from the coast of Orissa and blazes across the firmament. India joins the select club of nations capable of making ballistic missiles. The scientist, the long hair now a trade-mark, is triumphantly carried on the shoulders of his colleagues.

May 11, 1998: A Gorkha hat hides his long hair in his disguise as an army officer in the Rajasthan desert. Then the earth shakes and with it, the world as India conducts a series of underground tests. The scientist is lauded as the guiding force behind the nuclear- weapons programme.

Dreams are important for the scientist whose name is as long as his achievements: Avul Pakir Jainulabddin Abdul Kalam. He says simply,"Dream dreams because dreams lead to thought and thought leads to action." In his case it has always led to extraordinary action.

Many of his peers twit him for bombastic statements and for shifting targets in whatever he achieved. They question both his scientific and intellectual acumen. Or scoff that all his doctoral degrees are honorary. But science is not all about formulas and test tubes. Or just plain genius. It's also about converting ideas into concrete realities that revolutionise the way we live or think about ourselves. However illogical this may seem, it is also about instinct, innovation and sheer perspiration.

Kalam is an inspirational figure not just because he demonstrates that merit can succeed and thrive amidst so much cynicism and nepotism. Or that among a people riven with religious strife, a Muslim could head India's most sensitive defence projects. More important Kalam's achievement is of an integrator of science who from an apparently mediocre team churned out awesome excellence. In short, he delivered.

His life and mission is a vindication of what a determined person can achieve against extraordinary odds. Born to a poor boat-owner's family in Ramnathapuram, Kalam sold newspapers to pay his fees and pawned his sister's jewellery to complete a diploma in engineering. Early in life he demonstrated a capacity for hard work and a will to succeed.

It is exhausting to track Kalam's progress. In the '60s and '70s he was a trail blazer in the space department. In the '80s he transformed the moribund Defence Research and Development Laboratory in Hyderabad into a highly motivated team. By the '90s Kalam emerged as the czar of Indian science and technology and was awarded the Bharat Ratna.

Now 68, his lifestlye remains frugal. He is indefatigable and dreams of making India a technological superpower. More important, he is still capable of acting on it.