How Kind And Inspiring APJ Abdul Kalam Was
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Late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has always been known for his knowledge and kindness. Here are some real-life incidents that show how inspiring the man has always been:
When some ISRO scientists were returning from Kourou, French Guiana, after overseeing the testing of INSAT-4B communications satellite, they did not expect what was to follow at the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. After checking their passports, the airport officers continued to escort them. Confused, the scientists asked if there was any problem when the officer said they had orders to do so.
A senior officer then asked them to access the VIP Lounge of the Airline as their flight was scheduled after three hours. When the scientists told them that they had economy tickets, the officer informed that president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was boarding a flight from the same terminal a few hours back, and had informed them that scientists from ISRO would be using their services as there is a satellite launch. He also requested them to take care of them.
Amused, the scientists stayed in the lounge for those 3 hours and later left in their flight. In spite of his busy schedule, Dr Kalam remembered that there was a launch scheduled and that many scientists would be traveling to and from India to ensure a successful mission.
- Abhilash ManjunathDuring a hectic project, one of the 70 scientists working on it asked Dr Kalam if he could leave at 5.30 pm that evening as he had promised to take his kids to an exhibition. Dr. Kalam gave him permission. However, the scientist got busy with work only to realise that it was 8.30 pm. When he looked for his boss, he wasn’t there. Guilty for having disappointed his kids, he went back home only to find that his kids weren’t there. When he asked his wife where they were, she replied, “You don’t know? Your manager came here at 5.15 pm and took the children to the exhibition.”
When Dr. Kalam noticed him working hard at 5pm, he thought to himself that this person would not leave work, but if he had promised his children, they should definitely enjoy the exhibition. So he, the boss, took the lead and took them there!
-UnknownWhen some Indian students met him during the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) at San Diego, California, in 2013, they went up to his dining table to say hello. The President, who was eating dinner, asked a student to eat from his plate. Highly surprised, he took a leaf of spinach from his salad when he insisted. “Till this day I take it to be a leaf of inspiration from him and the best dinner I could ever imagine,” he shared.
- Kshitij Mall
While he was working on a construction project with DRDO, he asked the team what would they do to ensure security around a certain building. The team lead suggested: “Broken glass on the walls.”
The former President was quick to turn down the suggestion. He said, “The birds cannot perch on the wall. Think of something else.” A politician who thought about birds as much as he did about people!
- Shreya Samesh
A Class 6 student made Kalam’s sketch after reading his book, ‘Wings Of Fire.’ When he showed it around in the family, his family got super excited and asked him to mail it to the President. A little hesitant at first, he still did so. But little was he expecting what happened next. A couple of days later, he got a letter from the President himself!
“I opened the prized-envelope with utmost care and took out a small note. It said ‘Dear Naman Narain, Thank you for your nice drawing. With best wishes from, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’.”
Till this date I keep the card safe with me.
- Naman NarainA batch of IIM, Indore, students were to give a presentation to Mr. Kalam in groups. Since this was a big chance to impress the President, everyone was trying hard, except this one group of so-called casual students, the back benchers. They started working 2 days before the D day. One of the students took the responsibility to format the presentation. While the content took half a day, he took 1.5 days with no sleep to add colour, formatting and animation to the slides.
When the group presented the presentation, Dr. Kalam asked who did the formatting. He gave that guy a golden visiting card saying “ex-President India” printed on it and asked him to call at the office after two days. When the guy made the call, he was told that he had been chosen for an internship at his office and will be working on various presentations that he needs for the UNO.
Right after Dr. Abdul Kalam was elected as the President, he attended an event at Kerala Raj Bhavan in Trivandrum. With the power vested in him, he could invited any two people as the Presidential guests. Guess who he called? A road side cobbler and the owner of a very small hotel.
Dr. Kalam had spent a significant time as a scientist in Trivandrum. He invited the cobbler and the hotel owner, both of whom he was close to during his time in Kerala.
No other politician can do this, can they?
Dr. Kalam was invited as the chief guest at the convocation ceremony at IIT, Varanasi. Five chairs were put on the stage, the middle one being for Kalam and the others for the university officials. When Dr. Kalam noticed that his chair was bigger in size than the others, he refused to sit on it and politely asked the vice-chancellor to sit instead. When the chancellor did not, another chair of the same size was made available for Dr. Kalam!
Now which other politician would do that? The best part is that the who’s who of the nation replied to Dr. Kalam, including Leander Paes, Kiran Bedi and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. You can see the post – https://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid...
When Dr. Kalam was about to deliver a lecture at a small school, the electricity went off. Instead of panicking or waiting for it to come back, he walked right in to the middle of the crowd pointing towards the students to surround him. He went on to deliver another inspiring lecture with his bare, powerful voice!
You will continue to inspire us, sir!
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#YouRock
Very nice!
gud post
Is was 
Thanks for sharing
role model for lot of peoples…..
Just noticed MSN mistakes wrting his name
http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/national/rameswar...
i don’t know why they are disrespecting the gem of a person. really felt sad when see this hatred towards sir APJ ABDUL KALAM
@infrared1100 wrote:
h1. …and meanwhile a BJP S.O.B. is doing this…
That’s bullshit
@kathiravankannan05748 wrote:
:evil:
You’re “just” feeling sad, I am burning in anger.
Thoda time nikal kar mar kyu nai jate aise log.
Personalities like Kalam sir are dead and BJP shits like these are still breathing.
@infrared1100 wrote:
h1. …and meanwhile a BJP S.O.B. is doing this…
He said someone created a fake twitter account and posting this kinda things
look at this https://twitter.com/rajasi...jp.
The Last Moments of APJ. 1st person account
“What I will be remembered for.. my memory of the last day with the great Kalam sir… "
(Written by his close aide Srijan Pal Singh, who accompanied him in the travel and was there at the end).
“It has been eight hours since we last talked – sleep eludes me and memories keep flushing down, sometimes as tears. Our day, 27th July, began at 12 noon, when we took our seats in the flight to Guhawati. Dr. Kalam was 1A and I was IC. He was wearing a dark colored “Kalam suit”, and I started off complimenting, “Nice color!” Little did I know this was going to be the last color I will see on him.
Long, 2.5 hours of flying in the monsoon weather. I hate turbulence, and he had mastered them. Whenever he would see me go cold in a shaking plane, he would just pull down the window pane and say, “Now you don’t see any fear!”.
That was followed by another 2.5 hours of car drive to IIM Shillong. For these two legged trips of five hours we talked, discussed and debated. These were amongst hundreds of the long flights and longer drives we have been together on, over the last six years.
As each of them, this was as special too. Three incidents/discussions in particular will be “lasting memories of our last trip”.
First, Dr. Kalam was absolutely worried about the attacks in Punjab. The loss of innocent lives left him filled with sorrow. The topic of the lecture at IIM Shillong was Creating a Livable Planet Earth. He related the incident to the topic and said, “It seems the man made forces are as big a threat to the livability of earth as pollution”.
We discussed on how, if this trend of violence, pollution and reckless human action continues we will forced to leave earth.
“Thirty years, at this rate, maybe”, he said. “You guys must do something about it… it is going to be your future world”
Our second discussion was more national. For the past two days, Dr. Kalam was worried that time and again Parliament, the supreme institution of democracy, was dysfunctional. He said, “I have seen two different governments in my tenure. I have seen more after that. This disruption just keeps happening. It is not right. I really need to find out a way to ensure that the parliament works on developmental politics.”
He then asked me to prepare a surprise assignment question for the students at IIM Shillong, which he would give them only at the end of the lecture. He wanted to them to suggest three innovative ways to make the Parliament more productive and vibrant. Then, after a while he returned on it.
“But how can ask them to give solutions if I don’t have any myself”. For the next one hour, we thwarted option after option, who come up with his recommendation over the issue. We wanted to include this discussion in our upcoming book, Advantage India.
Third, was an experience from the beauty of his humility. We were in a convoy of 6-7 cars. Dr. Kalam and I were in the second car. Ahead us was an open gypsy with three soldiers in it. Two of them were sitting on either side and one lean guy was standing atop, holding his gun. One hour into the road journey, Dr. Kalam said,
“Why is he standing? He will get tired. This is like punishment. Can you ask a wireless message to be given that he may sit?”
I had to convince him, he has been probably instructed to keep standing for better security. He did not relent. We tried radio messaging, that did not work. For the next 1.5 hours of the journey, he reminded me thrice to see if I can hand signal him to sit down. Finally, realizing there is little we can do – he told me, “I want to meet him and thank him”.
Later, when we landed in IIM Shillong, I went inquiring through security people and got hold of the standing guy. I took him inside and Dr. Kalam greeted him. He shook his hand, said thank you buddy. “Are you tired? Would you like something to eat? I am sorry you had to stand so long because of me”. The young lean guard, draped in black cloth, was surprised at the treatment. He lost words, just said, “Sir, aapke liye to 6 ghante bhi khade rahenge”.
After this, we went to the lecture hall. He did not want to be late for the lecture.
“Students should never be made to wait”, he always said.
I quickly set up his mike, briefed on final lecture and took position on the computers. As I pinned his mike, he smiled and said,
“Funny guy! Are you doing well?”
‘Funny guy’, when said by Kalam could mean a variety of things, depending on the tone and your own assessment. It could mean, you have done well, you have messed up something, you should listen to him or just that you have been plain naïve or he was just being jovial. Over six years I had learnt to interpret Funny Guy like the back of my palm. This time it was the last case.
“Funny guy! Are you doing well?” he said. I smiled back, “Yes”. Those were the last words he said. Two minutes into the speech, sitting behind him, I heard a long pause after completing one sentence. I looked at him, he fell down.
We picked him up. As the doctor rushed, we tried whatever we could. I will never forget the look in his three-quarter closed eyes and I held his head with one hand and tried reviving with whatever I could. His hands clenched, curled onto my finger. There was stillness on his face and those wise eyes were motionlessly radiating wisdom. He never said a word. He did not show pain, only purpose was visible.
In five minutes we were in the nearest hospital. In another few minutes the they indicated the missile man had flown away, forever. I touched his feet, one last time. Adieu old friend! Grand mentor! See you in my thoughts and meet in the next birth.
As turned back, a closet of thoughts opened. Often he would ask me, “You are young, decide what it will like to be remembered for?”
I kept thinking of new impressive answers, till one day I gave up and resorted to tit-for-tat. I asked him back,
“First you tell me, what will you like to be remembered for? President, Scientist, Writer, Missile man, India 2020, Target 3 billion…. What?”
I thought I had made the question easier by giving options, but he sprang on me a surprise.
“Teacher”, he said.
Then something he said two weeks back when we were discussing about his missile time friends. He said,
“Children need to take care of their parents. It is sad that sometimes this is not happening”.
He paused and said,
“Two things. Elders must also do. Never leave wealth at your deathbed – that leaves a fighting family. Second, one is blessed if one can die working, standing tall without any long drawn ailing. Goodbyes should be short, really short”.
Today, I look back – he took the final journey, teaching, what he always wanted to be remembered doing. And, till his final moment he was standing, working and lecturing. He left us, as a great teacher, standing tall. He leaves the world with nothing accumulated in his account but loads of wishes and love of people. He was a successful, even in his end.
Will miss all the lunches and dinners we had together, will miss all the times you surprised me with your humility and startled me with your curiosity, will miss the lessons of life you taught in action and words, will miss our struggles to race to make into flights, our trips, our long debates. You gave me dreams, you showed me dreams need to be impossible, for anything else is a compromise to my own ability. The man is gone, the mission lives on. Long live Kalam.
Your indebted student,
Srijan Pal Singh
Salute KALAM Ji
Complaints from Dr. Kalam,
thanks
@Smarty
for helping me to upload the video
ur welcome @B@R_0_0_D Sir
@B@R_0_0_D wrote:
Complaints from Dr. Kalam,
thanks
@Smarty
for helping me to upload the video
https://studio.stupeflix.com/v/i5uKrZR...c/
APJ ABDUL KALAM-ex President of india
Property- 2 pair of pant and shirt
2 shoes and shocks
even he were denoting his pension to child wellfare NGO..
A big salute To ex president APJ ABDUL KALAM
Thanks for sharing..