Remembering Dr. A P J Kalam

Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology and Swadesi Science Movement organized a gathering to remember Dr. A P J Kalam at M R Das Hall in the Campus I of RGCB at 11 in the morning of August 10, 2015. Dr. G Madhavan Nair, the former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization, Professor M Radhakrishna Pillai, the Director of RGCB, Dr. Suresh Das, Executive Vice President of KSCSTE and Mr. A Jayakumar, Secretary General of Vijnana Bharati were kind enough to share their very close interactions with Dr. Kalam on personal and professional grounds.

Professor Pillai reminisced Dr. Kalam’s words during his visits to RGCB in 2002 and 2005 during his presidential tenure that he had shared with RGCB blog before. Dr. Suresh Das mentioned how moved he was with the various anecdotes validating Dr. Kalam’s simplicity, humility, leadership qualities and team spirit over and again. Dr. Kalam always wanted his team to be very productive for which he ensured that his team members always had the best environment to work. “There couldn’t be a much better way for Dr. Kalam to leave this earth but while talking to youth about saving earth and making this planet a better place to live in.” He mentioned how once Dr. Kalam sent his manager to take the kids of one of his team members to a carnival when their father couldn’t turn up in time, as he was engrossed at work.

Mr. Jayakumar, having interacted with Dr. Kalam on many personal and official occasions, recalled how powerful a thinker he was and how hopeful he always was of India rising up to the most prosperous nation in the world. He made his wonderful observation that Dr. Kalam started his foresighted journey of interacting with the young minds of India, motivating them, guiding them from north-east India in 2002 and by destiny, ended his circle right there itself after traveling all over India with his visions and dreams for over a decade. He urged each and everyone not to just remember Dr. Kalam by repeating his words or remembering his deeds, but to rise above the conventionalities and put his words into practice, materialize his dreams and bring the prosperity, peace and progress to Mother India that Dr. Kalam envisioned.

Dr. Madhavan Nair, who started his career in the team of Dr. Kalam at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in 1967, recollected how Dr. Kalam nurtured him into an exemplary technologist. “He always gave us much more work than what we could accomplish in a given time, but always showed us the right path to travel through to achieve those goals on time”; he told why he never had regrets working in Dr. Kalam’s team. Despite unhealthy competition from his contemporaries, Dr. Kalam rose to be an indispensible part of India’s space and defense programs through sheer perseverance, leadership skills and visions. He always ensured an ideal working environment for his team. While working on a high profile project-nearing deadline, Dr. Kalam made all the arrangements for proper medical attention to Dr. Nair’s son who fell ill and calmly broke the news to him only when his son was safe. He emphasized how much more each of us had to learn from the principles and ethics of Dr. Kalam. Even as the President of India, he did not use a penny from the government to entertain his personal guests in Rashtrapathi Bhavan nor did he recommend any of his acquaintances to any jobs, but rather paid his bills from his pocket and urged everyone to earn a job through good education. He concluded with mixed emotions that Dr. Kalam couldn’t be better described with any words but with the verses of “Endaro Mahanubhavulu”, Tyagaraja’s famous Cranatic kriti that Dr. Kalam always used to play on his Veena.

Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam: inspiring, ingenious, insightful

“Dream is not that which you see while sleeping it is something that does not let you sleep”. 

                                         - Dr. A PJ Abdul Kalam in “Wings of Fire: An Autobiography”

Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam was the most discerning visionary India has ever seen. He rose from an insubstantial household in Rameswaram to be the ineluctable element of space, defense, legislature and education enterprise in India. One of the few scholars hand-picked and mentored by the father of Indian space programs, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, he played the most crucial role in materializing Satellite Launching Vehicle-III (SLV-III), Polar Satellite Launching Vehicle (PSLV), ballistic missiles Agni and Prithvi, Pokhran-II nuclear tests raising India’s glory to unfathomable scale. He adored his life with simplicity even when accolades poured in from all over the world including thirty honorary doctorates and Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of the Republic of India.

Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology had the honor to interact with Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam twice. Back in 2002, when the institution just flourished out from its incubator and started its independent journey in the new campus at Jagathy (where the Campus I: RGCB Discovery Research now exists), the then President of India, Dr. Kalam dedicated the institution and its facilities to the nation. It was a moment of great honor to the founders and scientists of RGCB. The visionary in him emphasized the need for “fully exploiting the rich biodiversity that the country was endowed with for the benefit of people.” He urged the scientists to “explore the possibilities of utilizing the indigenous knowledge in Indian traditional medicine” to produce more marketable drugs. Looking at the scientific profile of the institution, he called for untiring perseverance from biotechnology researchers to never stop their efforts at discovering and patenting therapeutic molecules but carry it forward to convert these molecules into drugs beneficial to mankind.

Taking his words in its true sense, it was with immense pride that RGCB welcomed him again in December 2005 for inaugurating the international symposium on “Translational Research: Apoptosis and Cancer”. It was the day after the Principal Investigators confirmed the positive results of a clinical trial to reduce radiation mucositis with a herbal mouthwash developed by RGCB and the Regional Cancer Centre. Professor M Radhakrishna Pillai, Director of RGCB reminisced the day when Dr. Kalam addressed the gathering at MR Das Hall in RGCB, “He spoke to us not as the ace scientist, not as the President of India but as a common man with fears and apprehensions about the deadly disease of cancer, emphasizing the necessity for a wholesome physiological and psychological approach to addressing this disease.” Calling for an initiative to uplift translational research through a consortium of research institution-industry- hospital, he put forth the dire need for Biotechnology discipline in India to rise up and provide affordable and accessible therapeutics to millions of Indians. “Ignoring the repeated cues from his aide-de-camp about running late and his forthcoming engagements of the day, he stayed back to directly interact with the more than three hundred students and scientists who gathered excitedly to meet him and talked vivaciously about his personal and professional lives and his visions and aspirations about India”, Professor Pillai shared his excitement with RGCB blog. Humility is the hallmark of greatness. “Professor Pillai, could you please grab me a chair as it is difficult for me to sit on the floor with my bad backache?” he reluctantly requested seeing the hundreds of students sitting on the floor of RGCB atrium waiting to interact with him

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Today, as the nation mourns the loss of one of our greatest leaders, RGCB salutes Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the man who taught India to dream high, to be courageous to think different, to be creative to invent, to be righteous at heart to share knowledge, to be an ideal citizen, to be an unrelenting seeker of cognizance.