Ready To Fire: How India and I Survived the ISRO Spy Case

by Nambi Narayanan

There was a time when I wanted to end it all, but I had to live to tell the tale. And see my tormentors get their comeuppance. This book is not an effort in revenge. This is an experiment in something more powerful: truth.

you can’t make a rocket engine based on know-how—you need the ‘know-why’.

After a minute of what they thought was creative thinking, one said his name was Satya (truth); and the other Dharma (duty). ‘Nice names,’ I said, resisting the temptation to say that my name is ‘Neeti’ (justice).

Kale pulled Kalam’s leg, ‘Oh Kalam, you just had a premature ejection.’ Not getting the pun, Kalam tried to explain the science.

I set up the model by the foyer of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, a place nobody visiting the centre, including the chairman, could avoid. I got a platform built around the upper part of the engine, and a stair case leading up to it, so that one can touch, feel and see the parts of the gas generator, the turbo pump and the feed lines. At the foot of engine sat a board that read: ‘I am Vikas engine. I have a thrust of sixty tonnes and my specific impulse is 295 seconds. By the way, I am an orphan.’

Vikas means development in Sanskrit, and this was easy to sell within ISRO as a nomenclature, but I had seen another adapted anagram in the name. For me, Vikas stood for Vikram A Sarabhai.

‘Own up the team’s failure, let the team take the credit for the success—that was Dhawan,’ Kalam would say.