Beehive My Childhood - CBSE Revision Notes
CBSE Class 09 English Language and Literature
Revision Notes
Beehive Chapter-6
My Childhood
Revision Notes
Beehive Chapter-6
My Childhood
In his autobiography,'Wings of Fire',Kalam has described his childhood. He was born in 1931 in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu.His father Jainulabdeen, possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit ,despite the fact that he neither had formal education nor was a wealthy man.His mother,Ashiamma was a gentle lady, who fed so many people everyday.The whole family lived in their ancestral house where all the basic necessities were provided. Kalam had a secure childhood,both emotionally and materially.
When Kalam was eight years old, when Second World War broke out in 1939, a sudden demand for tamarind seeds erupted in the market. Kalam would collect the seeds and sell them to a provision store.He was paid an anna for a days work.
Soon there was an emergency like situation due to the war.The first casualty was the suspension of train halt at Rameswaram station.This affected the distribution of newspapers also. Kalam would catch the bundles of newspaper from the moving train and sell them.He fetched an anna per day for the services.
Kalam inherited some characteristics from his parents like ,honesty and self-discipline from his father and faith in goodness and deep kindness from his mother.
Kalam had three friends-Ramanadha Sastry,Aravindan and Sivaprakasan. They all belonged to orthodox Hindu Brahmin families.
Kalam and his family participated in the annual Shri Sita Rama Kalyanam ceremony.They used to arrange boats with special platforms to carry idols of Lord from the temple to the marriage site.
Kalam's mother and grandmother used to tell them the stories from the Ramayana and the Prophet's life.They were their favorite bedtime stories.
When Kalam was in the fifth class, a new teacher came to their school.He could not digest the fact that Hindu and Muslim can sit together in the class. Kalam used to wear a cap that the Muslims wear and his friend Ramanadha Sastry wore a thread around him.The teacher thought that Kalam was a Muslim and asked him to shift to the last bench in the lass. Ramanadha cried to this and felt very upset.Both the boys narrated the incident to their respective parents.They summoned the teacher and told him not to spread the poison of social inequality and communal intolerance.They asked him to either apologise or leave the school.The teacher felt bad for his behaviour and apologised to them.This incident transformed the teacher completely.
Kalam's science teacher,Sivasubramania Iyer ,an orthodox Brahmin, tried his best to break the social barriers.He advised Kalam to go for higher education.Once he invited Kalam to his house for dinner.But Iyer's wife did not like the idea of a Muslim boy joining them for dinner.She did not allow him to enter her kitchen.But Iyer served food and sat beside Kalam to eat food.While he was leaving,Sivasubramania invited him again to his house.On his next visit ,Kalam found that his wife too welcomed him and also allowed him to enter her kitchen.
After the Second World War was over,Kalam asked his father that he wanted to leave Rameswaram and study at the district headquarters in Ramanathapuram
Though his mother did not want him to go but his father convinced her to let him go.
