NCERT Book Class 9 English (Beehive) Chapter 6 No Men Are Foreign; My Childhood

6. My Childhood

BEFORE YOU READ
• Can you think of any scientists, who have also been
statesmen?
• A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, whose projects in space, defence and
nuclear technology guided India into the twenty-first century,
became our eleventh President in 2002.
• In his autobiography, Wings of Fire, he speaks of his
childhood.

1. I WAS born into a middle-class Tamil family in the
island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras erstwhile: former
State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much
formal education nor much wealth; despite these
disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom innate: inborn; (a
and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal quality or feeling) in
one’s nature
helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall
the exact number of people she fed every day, but I
am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with
us than all the members of our own family
put together.
2. I was one of many children — a short boy with
rather undistinguished looks, born to tall and
handsome parents. We lived in our ancestral house,
which was built in the middle of the nineteenth
century. It was a fairly large pucca house, made of
limestone and brick, on the Mosque Street in
Rameswaram. My austere father used to avoid all austere: simple,
inessential comforts and luxuries. However, all strict and severe
necessities were provided for, in terms of food,
medicine or clothes. In fact, I would say mine
was a very secure childhood, both materially
and emotionally.