APJ Abdul Kalaam
…One name every Indian will remember in their lifetime. Every time his image flashes in your mind it brightens our face and enlightens our mind. As came in one of the
media we have not lived during Gandhi, Nehru times but we can be proud we lived
in APJ Kalaam era. No other politician or a public figure created this much of
disturbance in the minds of the public. Any Indian should pay tribute to this
man who dedicated his life to our nation..an artist drew paintings to pay his
tribute ..TV channels dedicated programs to pay their tribute ….Bus companies
offered free trips to rameswaram …I feel a small blog to the humble man will be
my true tribute ….
First and foremost
I am indebted to APJ sir on a personal level since during my early days to
cultivate reading habit I bought one of his famous books ‘Wings of fire’. This
is where I started to enjoy autobiographies. There should be something struck
in his mind which is why he loves Mother India so much and how lucky the nation
is to have such a person dwell all through his life. He is one of the rare
Indians who was born in India, brought up in India, worked for India all
through his life. His accomplishments are just recognitions but his biggest
contribution is towards the youth of the nation by creating a positive impact. He
could have converted his talents into Euros, dollars or any currency but rupee
is the currency he cherished.
One of the amazing
traits of APJ sir was he earned so much of good will and not even an iota of
enmity; When you are the president of the nation there would have arisen number
of occasions where you are forced to do something against your wish, on
interview with media sometimes questions get tricky and the way it gets
published would be with lots of twists and turns, when you are a scientist some
tough decisions had to be taken keeping the bigger picture in mind, pressure
from political parties is also one must go through. So it is never easy to
please everyone when you are public figure like APJ sir and it is a daunting
task to come out clean from all of this. Has APJ earned one enemy? Has he
earned any betrayal? Has he earned any enmity with his peers? Even a kid can
answer any of these questions.
Now look at the
house of APJ sir, his relatives, his wealth etc., It is difficult to believe
how a human being can be so humble and simple. He gets only books as gifts,
earned his living from his salary and patents, donated quite a bit of his
wealth to charity. When the society is running behind Apple vs Samsung there
are also human beings who doesn’t own a mobile. Every single politician should
be embarrassed looking into APJ sir’s life. HE doesn’t even want a national
holiday on his death instead he wanted people to work. Because he didn’t have
any enmity he was able to address public gathering more freely without worrying
about security protocols. His gesture to talk to Jawaan since he was standing
in the gypsy as part of the security protocol touched me. He wanted his last breadth to be while teaching and naturally with no suffering whatsoever when he was addressing the students he collapsed and bid adieu to whole world. One of his wishes is to celebrate his brother's 100th birthday next year and hope his dream comes true.
My next visit to
Rameswaram I will visit the temple and also definitely visit his burial place
and pay my respects. Any recognition we do for this man like a national holiday
on honor of his birthday, stamp release, having his face embedded on indian
rupee, Museum dedicated towards his work for nation etc., will not be sufficient.
His dream was to make our nation superpower and if the nation can work towards
that goal especially the Youth then I am sure he will be a happy man. May his
soul rest in peace and am sure heaven is much more glorified now upon his
entry.