It is not easy to explain the loss of a brilliant mind so I will spare telling you my feelings when I heard Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam had died last night. Instead, let me tell you two stand-out memories I have of the great man – and why we must strive to follow his example. Incredibly, they are both related to my travels.
Memory 1 –Aboard an airplane
In 2007, on an assignment in Bhopal while I was working for Sunday Review for The Times of India, I was also sent to Indore to cover the Miss India competition at Indore. On board the short 40-minute flight between the two cities, I realised that the person on seat 1A was none other than Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, or APJ Abdul Kalam as the world knows him.
He had left the country’s highest office only a few months prior and had a couple of guards protecting him from the passengers looking for their seats. I asked my photographer who was travelling with me if we should talk to him but the air-hostess (it was a Jet airways flight) refused to let us go to the First Class seats.
Abdul Kalam, unaware that I was trying hard to just meet him about 15 rows away, was engrossed in papers and hardly looked up whenever I tried to catch his eye. Even before I could come up with a Plan B, the captain announced that we were beginning our descent.
My photographer grumbled about how we would be made to wait until Abdul Kalam was escorted out of the airplane and probably the airport before we would disembark. When we got out of the aircraft in 10 minutes, I was astonished to see that Abdul Kalam had gone to one side of the airport where there was a group of students waiting for him. By now, he was smiling at the sight of all the children in front of him while I made my way to the terminal and beyond his line of sight.
Memory 2 – At his birthplace Rameswaram
Abdul Kalam was born in Rameswaram to Jainulabdeen, a fisherman and Ashiamma, a housewife. The young Kalam lived in this coastal city before setting sight on his goals. When I reached Rameswaram almost a decade earlier, apart from the local temples, windmills and the short ride to Dhanushkodi, a lasting impression on me was visiting Kalam’s house. It wasn’t the house itself but the pride with which locals showed me the house that has stayed with me. If he was loved by India as a scientist, teacher and President, in his hometown, he was loved for being their son and making them proud. Today, the house has been converted into a museum by his 99-year-old brother Mohammed Muthu Meera Lebbai Maraicker that showcases the life and times of Abdul Kalam.
Both experiences I had only go on to prove how Abdul Kalam was a loved and inspirational figure and why his loss is so deeply felt in India. The reason he has such a big following is because he inspired the child in each of us to dream big and never let anything stand in its way.
RIP dear teacher.
