Syed Badrul Ahsan explores the life of a statesman and a landscape of literature
A modern-day philosopher-king
Presidents do make a difference, especially in countries governed through parliamentary democracy. For Indians, a rather good feature of their country's constitutional politics has been the presence in Rashtrapati Bhavan of men held in great esteem both at home and abroad. There have been Rajendra Prasad, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussein, V.V. Giri, Shankar Dayal Sharma and others. And, of course there has been APJ Abdul Kalam, the soft-spoken, self-effacing man who put India on the world's scientific perch. And then he went on to serve, with dignity and aplomb, as India's president.
Avul Pakeer Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam has always been emblematic of humility, with his feet firmly planted on the ground. And that humility, his ability not to let grandeur of office get in the way of his natural demeanour, all of that gets to be revealed yet once again in My Journey. It is a tale of simplicity, of the rise of a man to public renown from the grassroots. Kalam's background is Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, in that properly and literally humble sense of the meaning. The charm in the story is Kalam's unwillingness to conceal his past, a characteristic one does not quite find in many others who have risen to great heights in the subcontinent. Not for Kalam a reference to roots that do not define him, that do not exist; not for him a resort to pretension. He presents his case as it is.
And the case is simple, to the point: while Kalam and his siblings had a happy childhood, the bigger truth was that the family was constantly engaged in a struggle for a respectable livelihood. His father was the imam of the small local mosque, besides selling coconuts to make ends meet. At one point, he went into the business of building boats to use as ferries for people, usually tourists, travelling to and from Rameswaram. And those boats, to the elder Jainulabdeen's intense sadness, were systematically claimed by tidal surges, leaving the family scraping again and again for a decent existence. It always clawed back to normal, somehow.
The extent of the poverty APJ Abdul Kalam grew up in, and then out of it, comes through a narration of two instances in his life. First, as a schoolboy, and between studying the Koran and attending classes in school, he made it a daily affair (thanks to a cousin) running to the local railway station, picking up the bundles of newspapers thrown out of the train window and distributing copies to local subscribers. That was his way of supplementing the family income. Second, after he had once devoured a number of chapattis, which his mother was serving him, his elder brother called him aside and berated him on his insensitivity to the fact that it had not occurred to him to remember that he had also consumed the chapattis meant for his mother and grandmother. For a long time after that, Kalam wallowed in shame. It was a stinging lesson for him, enough to make him understand the dire straits poverty could put people into.
And yet for Kalam, indeed for the people of Rameswaram, life was far removed from what it was in the north of India. As the struggle for independence intensified, with a concomitant rise of Muslim separatism, the elders of Rameswaram, among whom was Kalam's father, made sure that communalism did not get in the way of the life of the community. This resolve was disturbed only once, and then quickly restored. It so happened that a new teacher arrived at the school where Kalam and his friends, Hindu and Christian and Muslim, were students. On day one of his class, the new teacher wished to know Kalam's name. When that became known, the teacher asked Kalam, a boy who had always shared the first bench with his Hindu classmate, because of his good grades, to move to the back of the class. He did so, with tears in his eyes. His Hindu friend too was filled with tears. When the matter became known in the village, the elders summoned the new teacher, told him in no uncertain terms that in Rameswaram caste, creed and colour had no place. A chastened teacher changed his decision. Kalam went back to the front bench.
For the rest of his life, Kalam made sure that he stayed on the front bench. For his achievements in life, he remains grateful to his family, particularly his mother, his sister Zohra and his mentor and later brother-in-law Ahmed Jalalluddin. Observe the fondness with which he remembers those who showed him the path to light:
Of his father, Kalam notes:
"As I walk wherever my life has led me, I often think of my father Jainulabdeen. In my mind's eye I see a simple man, who, even when he was of a great age, continued to walk every morning to his coconut grove."
Of his mother, he reports thus:
"Many years ago, I wrote a poem called 'My Mother', which began with these lines:
Sea waves, golden sand, pilgrims' faith,
Rameswaram Mosque Street, all merge into one,
My Mother!"
Kalam goes on, a little later in the narrative:
"One of my earliest memories is of eating with my mother, sitting on the kitchen floor. We ate off banana leaves. Rice, aromatic sambar, home-made pickles and coconut chutney were the staple foods. Her cooking was deceptively simple and till today, I have not eaten sambar that balances the tart and the spicy tastes as delicately as hers did."
Of Zohra, here is what he has to say:
"Like my mother, Zohra lived out her life in Rameswaram. She was as efficient, cheerful and upright as her and the two of them together symbolize for me the resilience and resourcefulness of the ordinary Indian woman. This woman is a person who cannot be cowed down too long by her circumstances."
My Journey, at the end of it all, is the story of a modern-day philosopher-king. It dispenses wisdom, from a man who left his village to explore the world --- without losing sight of the simple home, the speeding train, the coconut groves and the old storms speaking of the fury of the gods. Years after childhood left him, he remembers the warmth of his mother as he let his head rest in her lap.
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