Failures stepping stone to success?

‘Success’ the most powerful n momentous word in English language…everybody under the sun wants to be associated with it. Success never comes alone. What not it brings with it, fame, money, and most important a bunch of people who feel haughty for being associated with you.

In our day to day life we come across hundreds of people who glorify their association with the successful people, but how many times will you ever encounter with people who stand by break downs. It is said that failures are stepping stones for success, but how many support a failure. People just mock failure, they ridicule failure.

I was reading 'Wings of Fire' and was very surprised on knowing the reaction of the media to the failure of AGNI missile (a project of DRDL under the directorship of Dr. Abdul Kalam) back in 1980's. AGNI is the most prestigious missile developed by our scientists at DRDL. It is the result of the hard work of many scientists, who have been so committed to the project that they even forgot their basic requirements like food and sleep. The work of one Mr. Nagaraj needs to be quoted here; he was so dedicated to it that he couldn’t even attend the death of his family member.

It was a challenge not just for the scientists of DRDL but also the whole nation. Till then India was importing the missiles from other countries, very few countries have the technology required to produce a missile, if it were a success, a small country like India will have an eminent place among world nations. But to every ones disappointment the first attempt of the launch had failed and the launch had been postponed. The scientists who worked on it were broken, depressed and were quite wretched.

What surprised me the most is the reaction of media to the failure. The press had interpretations of the postponement of the launch in their own way to suit the fancies of their readership. The news paper was the biggest media then with the highest reach. Here are some of the cartoons from different news papers of that time after the failure of first two launches of ‘Agni’ missile.

Cartoonist Sudhir Dar sketched a shopkeeper returning a product to the salesman saying that like ‘Agni’ it would not take off.

Hindustan Times showed a leader consoling press reporters, ‘there is no need for any alarm …it’s a purely peaceful, non violent missile.

The Hindu carried a cartoon showing a villager counting some currency notes and commenting to another, ‘yes…it’s a compensation for moving away from my hut near the test site- a few more postponements and I can build a house of my own.’

Another cartoonist designated AGNI as IDBM- Intermittently Delayed Ballistic Missile.

Another cartoonist showed one ‘Agni’ scientist explaining that the launch had failed because the press button did not make contact.

The only cartoonist who had showed some encouragement is RK Laxman, who drew a ‘Agni’ scientist telling to the press ‘nothing to be discouraged! We have postponed it again because we want to be absolutely certain’