“Is this polymeric nanofibre patch bio-degradable?” The question was not part of an end-semester examination nor was it asked during a PhD thesis defence. It came from former President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in his late night interaction with young researchers at the Nanotechnology Centre at SASTRA University during his visit on April 5, 2015. About this later.
SASTRA’s experience with Dr.Kalam aligned with his multidimensional persona — nationalist thinker, passionate researcher, socially conscious technocrat, attachment to native thinkers and above all an exemplary humanist.
As a nationalist thinker, his view of India’s progress was visionary and envisaged an India for the next generation and not for contemporary minimalists. His idea of TIFAC-COREs (Technology, Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council - Centre of Relevance and Excellence) throughout the country was one that viewed India as a networked, knowledge warehouse with a propensity to leverage shared knowledge for national progress.
SASTRA’s TIFAC-CORE in Advanced Computing & Information Processing was amongst the first such Centres blessed by Dr.Kalam during his avatar as Scientific Advisor to the Defence Ministry. A socially conscious technocrat, he made sure that the success of composite materials used for relief work during the Gujarat earthquake be used for Tsunami relief at Nagapattinam also. His interaction and words of solace while distributing callipers to polio-affected children at a camp organised by SASTRA still ring fresh in my ears. The immense satisfaction that his team’s research output was being used for polio rehabilitation was evident.
The humanitarian side to Dr. Kalam was abundantly manifest in his many interactions with people after his term as President. I still recall his response to our request to personally comfort the traumatised families who lost their children in the unfortunate Kumbakonam school fire in 2003. Dr. Kalam felt that his visit would disturb the State machinery’s relief work and promised that he would come later. True to his words, he visited Kumbakonam to meet the families and offered comfort.
Dr. Kalam’s affinity to native thinkers who left an indelible mark on the global and national landscape reflects his honest desire to perpetuate the legacy of such great minds. His speech containing the Thirukkural couplet at the European Union will remain permanently etched in our minds.
It was Dr. Kalam who urged during a meeting, before he became the President, “Do something before somebody asks who is Ramanujan? That will be an insult to the great Mathematician.” SASTRA University immediately purchased Srinivasa Ramanujan’s house in Kumbakonam and converted it into a memorial for the genius.
Last visit
Mindful of his loaded commitments on April 6, 2015 that including launching SASTRA University’s Vision 2025 and solar power plant, Dr. Kalam made it a point to visit the Center for Nanotechnology the previous night. This Center is an idea seeded and inaugurated by him as President in 2006. Kalam had made it a point to review its progress every time he visited and April 5, 2015 was no exception .
At the end of a punishing day of commitments, he reached SASTRA around 9:30 p.m. Yet Kalam was full of energy as he entered the Nanotechnology Centre. Time flew and little did people realise that when he left it was midnight. The intense interaction with the University research team, firing questions and challenging them to go further, was the experience of a lifetime for all those present.
As he prepared to leave SASTRA the next day, Kalam he assured us that he would return the next year to spend a full day. We still believe he would come back in a different form.
For karmayogi Kalam, “Sleep is short death and death is long sleep.”
(S.Vaidhyasubramaniam is Dean, Planning and Development, and Professor of Management at SASTRA University.)
