Tiffany, a visually challenged girl from the city, waited long for an audience with former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam at the Government College for Women here on Wednesday. But when the meeting happened, it was fruitful.
Grabbing the opportunity to meet, Tiffany sought to know from Mr. Kalam the kind of assistance she could get for her work in enriching and bettering the lives of visually challenged persons.
A visibly elated Mr. Kalam appreciated her positive attitude. He gave Tiffany his mail id and asked her to post her project to him.
“You have a great dream and I have been urging young men and women to dream. You please send your ideas to me, the kind of work that you plan to take up. I will assist you in getting it done,” he said. Mr. Kalam then recalled an interesting incident during one of the weekly interactive sessions with the public at Rashtrapathi Bhavan during his tenure as President. A visually challenged person from a tribal community evinced interest to become President of India. “I said you can if you pursue the idea,” he said. The former President, during his hour-long interaction, tried to spread his concept of ‘chasing a dream.’ All great achievers in science lived to realise their dreams and strived hard to achieve it, he said. “Whatever your task, there will be problems and failures. But, do not allow problems to be your master. You try to be the captain of the problem and do not allow the problems to subjugate you,” he said.
