Recollections of a Communicator; Kalam was a person loved by everyone he came in contact

New Delhi: It was my good fortune as a communicator in the Government of India to have come into contact with A.P. J. Abdul Kalam, who passed away in Shillong yesterday.

In 1982, I was the Director of Public Relations in the Ministry of Defence, when R. Venkatraman was the Defence Minister. During one of his visits to defence establishments, I had accompanied the Defence Minister to Hyderabad . The Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister V.S. Arunachalam was keen that the Defence Minister should visit the laboratory which was developing the Integrated Guided Missile Programme.

The Defence Minister and Dr. Arunachalam were taken round the laboratory by A.P. J. Abdul Kalam. He was a witness to the experiments of the launching vehicle, which made a deafening sound. We were all asked to cover our ears when the 'missile' was fired.

The Defence Minister asked Dr. Arunachalam, whether it did not create a disturbance in the neighbourhood. I recall , Dr. Arunachalam told him that it was not a frequent occurrence, and that Dr. Kalam had excellent rapport with the people around.

Later, I came to know that the Defence Minister got the Cabinet to sanction a sum of Rs. 388 crores for the missile project. That was the period when the Agni and Prithvi missiles were being developed. Later, when the missile was successfully launched, I had the opportunity of meeting Abdul Kalam at a reception organised by Dr. Arunachalam at his residence.

After my superannuation, I served in the Defence Ministry as a media advisor to Defence Minister George Fernandes. By that time A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had successfully completed his tenure as the head of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, and continued to have an advisory role to the Government of India. He was also associated with the Pokhran II nuclear test in 1998.

I recall that in June 2002 , when I was having an informal discussion in the office of A.S. Dulat ', who was an Advisor on Kashmir to the Prime Minister, I received a call from Defence Minster George Fernandes. He asked me to come quickly and help him prepare a biographical note to be presented at a meeting called by the Prime Minister, for the selection of the Presidential candidate in place of K. R. Narayanan. He said he wanted to suggest the name of A.P. J. Abdul Kalam for the post.

Abdul Kalam won the election decisively and I had the opportunity of witnessing the swearing in ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

That he was loved by every one with whom he came into contact, was evident to me during my visit to the Poorna Prajna School in Vasant Kunj here. I happened to be a member of the Board of Directors of the school, and it was a pleasure to watch his interaction with the children and inaugurate an ''exhibition' of water colour paintings.

I have the Kannada version of his autobiography "Wings of Fire", translated by Jayaprakash, a former officer of the DRDO and the story of missile development in the country authored by his associate scientist Sivathanu Pillai.

Mr. I. Ramamohan Rao is a former Principal Information Officer to the Government of India. He can be reached on his e-mail: raoramamohan@hotmail.com.