SIMPLICITY OF ABDUL KALAM, THE OUTGOING PRESIDENT OF INDIA
Dear Kids,
Those of you who are from India would be familiar with our beloved Abdul Kalam - A great president, and more importantly, a loveable human being.
All of you must have heard many stories about his various positive qualities (besides his great intelligence) - simplicity, transparency, honesty, etc.
Here is an example:
One year after he became President of India, on the morning of July 14, 2003, at 8.40 am, the RAX (President's Office Phone Exchange) in the office of the secretary to the President rang.
President Kalam was at the other end.
"Mr Nair," he said in a voice that was (as always) cool and composed, "last night I could not sleep because my bedroom was leaking..."
P.M. Nair froze and muttered something. "Any other President," he now recalls, "and my head would have rolled, although for no fault of mine."
At the other end of the line, the President (sensing Nair's embarrassment)
So Nair got moving, and with the help of the CPWD, the old staff quarters - until then dilapidated and neglected - were transformed into bright new leak-proof houses: in almost record time.
Nair tells me that he was greatly impressed at the concern and compassion shown by the President - not for himself but for other inmates on the Presidential Estate. It has been said that no man, however great, is a hero to his own secretary or his own valet. But as with all such sayings there are exceptions - from that point on, Nair had found his hero!
Truly remarkable, indeed. That too, in these times when many smaller men - politicians, managers, school authorities, doctors, etc. act as though they are "Big Shots" who should be worshipped.
All of you must learn about simplicity from such examples from the lives of great men.
Happy reading!
Uncle N
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