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Literary Review
The man behind the missile
Having an impact on the nation's psyche: two students in Bhopal sporting the now famous hair-do.
SOARING skyward on wings of fire, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is now the 12th President of the largest democracy in the world. But while everyone recognises him as the wizard missile-man, most people have meagre awareness of the man behind the technological brilliance.
My nephew, a retired senior naval officer who was closely associated with Dr. Kalam as his Deputy for about a decade, has shared with me some of the little-known facts about this remarkable person. From what I have heard and read, I seem to visualise him as a scientist with a cosmic poetic vision. Poetic, because he is a talented Tamil poet who has been writing verse throughout his career as a rocket engineer. He is a man of great sensitivity, observation and emotional warmth. I am told that during his official visits to Russia, he'd go for long walks along the Baltic seaside and scribble on scraps of paper, presumably, poems on the tidal waves, clouds or the sandy beach. He has written quite a few poems in Tamil but he has never cared to collect them in a volume. One of the most moving poems he has penned in English is the one in memory of his mother whom he worshipped — as someone who moulded him into the man he is today:
I still remember the day I was ten,
Sleeping on your lap. It was full moon night.
My world only you knew...
We will meet again on the great Judgment Day. My Mother!
Even his diary notes often fall into patterns of verse — little clusters of images and emotions, expressions of his intensely lived experience. This is how he winds up "a late night shift": "Beautiful hands are those that do/ Moment by Moment/ The long day through." His writings are laced with quotes from such poets as Milton, Emerson, T. S. Eliot — and Auden whose poem on the death of W.B. Yeats rekindles his own anguish over the loss of his father: "Earth, receive an honoured guest/ William Yeats is laid to rest."
From verse to music. If a poet's imagination enables him to empathise with the world around him, music is sustenance to his soul in moments of joy and sorrow. When on January 25, 1981, New Delhi informed him over the phone that he had been awarded the Padma Bhushan, he bolted himself in his room and turned on the stereo to listen to Bismillah Khan's shahnai which "took me to another time, another place." Most people don't know that he plays Carnatic music on the veena whenever he wants to escape into his dream world. If only our politicians would spare some time to read verse or listen to music, they'd be less prone to double-speak, graft and intrigue. "The man that hath no music in himself" (says the Bard), "is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils ... Let no such man be trusted."
Dr. Kalam is a man of impeccable integrity. I am told that on his official tours, he'd always hand in his entire travelling allowance to his host and direct him to manage his stay within its limits. Once when his Defence Minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav flowed on in his chaste Urdu, not realising that Dr. Kalam didn't know the language, Kalam decided to learn Urdu. This was when he sought my nephew's help. But when he was offered a little primer Urdu Through English, he insisted on paying for it. And, conversely, when someone asked for a complimentary copy of his Wings of Fire, he expected payment for it, as he was eager to scrape up every penny of his royalty, which he had signed off for charity. And a sumptuous amount at that! Recently, when I met his publishers (who are my publishers too), I learnt that his autobiography had already sold over two lakhs.
But as for himself, he has chosen to live the same, austere life he has lived since his student days. Although as Defence Secretary he was entitled to a large, furnished bungalow in Delhi, he chose a two-room apartment in the Defence Research Hostel, and lived on his usual vegetarian food of idli, rice and sambar (no eggs even). With his Einsteinean disregard for groomed hair, he is often seen in his causal sandals, creaseless trousers and bush shirt. If apparel proclaimeth the man, here is an embodiment of utmost simplicity.
Being a genuinely religious man, Dr. Kalam is equally conversant with both Islamic and Hindu theology. Adapting the Pythagorean image of the universe, he may ask for a long lever, with the Koran at one end, the Gita at the other, and the Thirukkural at the centre, and he would hold man in a perfect moral and spiritual equilibrium. While flying over cities, he often looks out of his window-seat and visualises the ground below as one integrated mass of humanity — sans any boundaries of caste, colour or creed. Indeed, one may say of him (to quote Shakespeare) that all "elements so mixt in him, / that Nature might stand up and say ... / This is a man."
Dr. Kalam ends his autobiography on a note of sombre contemplation. "This story will end with me. I have no inheritance in the worldly sense. I have acquired nothing, possess nothing — no family, sons, daughters." But he should have by now realised that in his "end" is a new beginning, for the river of life never stops flowing. For hasn't destiny propelled him from the Thumba launch pad, as it were, to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to let him steer his nation to greater glory?
SHIV K. KUMAR
The writer, recipient of the Padma Bhushan, is a poet, novelist, playwright and translator.
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