Of Presidents and Poems: A Real Story of a Chance Meeting
November 4, 2009 by Raghu Godavarthi
Former president of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Photo by Jeff Sandridge
Of Presidents, and Poems, and human happiness/A smile, is indeed the finest finesse/What stony countenance be that/which poetry does not positively affect/‘tis but such like that forever shut out regrets/Of Time, and Place, and gentle ironies/A smile, mostly, will put one at ease/Can history not bear witness?/Will geography leave no memorial?/Of tiny miracles, such as these
He stood there, an arm’s length away, and for the first time I saw him for who he was. At once, I was the shy kid who used to only come out from the bedroom when his parents asked him to “come and say hello to so-and-so Uncle and Auntie.” A second later, I was reading and absorbing his presence and reeling from the fatigue I saw on his aged face. He deserved to put up his feet and savor a cup of coffee. I didn’t feel so sure about pressing my seemingly meaningless questions upon him.
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the only surviving former president of India, visited Huntsville and the UAH campus on Oct. 28 as part of a visit to the space research facilities here. He also toured UAH.
Kalam presided over a luncheon with members of the Indian community and spoke to students afterwards. Afterwards, he met with a press delegation. He spoke about cooperation between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization as a definite means of making space travel affordable. He quoted his Space Vision 2050 and said that cooperation, not competition, was the way forward in space research.
“There are definitely opportunities,” Kalam said about student exchange programs between universities in India and UAH. He had praise for the facilities at UAH and felt there could be collaborations, especially in the area of space physics.
My inner urge to seek the man rather than the ex-president made me ask if we would be reading about Huntsville in his poetry He smiled hugely, and with much animation, said that we might. “The ideas are flowing here.”
I then presented my little book of poems, which he skimmed through and graciously autographed.