Bye Bye Mr. President

He is a rockstar and I don’t say this because of his hairstyle. Even before he took up the responsibilities bestowed upon him by the for-once-they-were-right politicians, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was already the hero of Indian middle class. With the Pokharan II nuclear tests, Dr. Kalam had come to symbolize the assertion of a young and hopeful Indian youth. I remember waking up to the news of nuclear tests being conducted in Pokharan and suddenly feeling very very proud.
As he moved into the highest office (and the largest piece of real estate) in our country five years back, many of us had misgivings about how would a scientist handle this office. In the limited powers that he would be given as the President of this country, would he be able to handle the nasty politics?
I am not a political columnist but as a citizen of this country I feel that he has been the best thing that happened to the post of President. He was the most popular President we have had and he opened the doors of the Rashtrapati Bhawan to the common man. He converted one room into a multimedia lab where he could be in touch with anyone across the country.
He visited people across the breadth of the country, especially children and talked to them in a language they understood. Wherever he went, he talked about his vision of making India a super power by 2020, he urged the youth to work towards the goal…his biggest grouse with the indian political leaders is that they seldom talk about the vision for India (are they listening???).
When he met the heads of other states, being a true technocrat, he made powerpoint presentations. When he talked, he wasn’t merely reading the speech prepared by his aides, he spoke with a passion seldom witnessed in his predecessors.
As we stride forward to a tentative future where our country is poised to play a much larger role in the world economy than ever before, we replace our scientist President with a superstitious yes-man-puppet who claims that she has been talking to some ‘baba’ spirit... Can it get worse than this? Well, we have seen worse days!!!
It is with a sense of deep loss that we say good-bye to a great man and hope that he continues to inspire the indian populace.