A Salaam to Kalam

One more great has passed away. There is something about a great man departing us. We feel some void. And that feeling is unmissable. We feel like he should have been around for longer.

I never met Mr Kalam. Nor did I ever see him. But I, like many others, knew what he wanted from us and from our nation. He wanted us to claim our rightful place in the world. To finally shed the shackles of mediocrity and defeatism.

I read Ignited Minds in which Mr Kalam described his travels across the country. He described the conversations he had with people across the length and breadth of this nation on the subject of how to transform India into a superpower by 2020. He also shared lessons he had learnt during his work with ISRO.

One of the things he talked about was the importance of keeping the goal above oneself. As long as one could keep the project as more important than one’s personal wants or desires, the project was likely to succeed.

During his travels across the country, he often met school children and tried to pass on his spark to them. Though he always carried an unmistakable spark about him, he was sparkled up all the more when he met children. He found questions from children inspiring.

He never made one realize his age. He was full of energy. And you could see him walking briskly along even in his tenure as the President of India.

He was a man of simplicity. There was no air about him. So, during his Presidency when a TOI group came to interview him and asked how he would like to be addressed, he said, “call me Kalam”.

He once said that he saw himself as a teacher. And sure enough, when he addressed India’s parliament, he sometimes had a whiteboard hanging right behind him to convey his points. And the parliamentarians gratefully tried to learn as much as they could from this gem of a man.

He was awarded the Bharat Ratna for helping India build a self-reliant missile system. He was called the missile man. He wrote his autobiography, Wings of Fire in which he described how from very humble beginnings of a newspaper seller, he reached the pinnacle of power in our country.

His favourite book was Light from many lamps, he said that it gave him confidence and hope. I have a copy of that book and consider it one of the prized possessions of my personal library.

But the man was a university in himself. And when I heard that he had collapsed while giving a lecture at IIM in Shillong, I knew that he must have had something very important to say.
Rest in peace.