Dear Dr.
Kalam,
I write
this today, and I believe that wherever You are now, my words can reach
you. I write this because I am not able to hold it. And I know those millions
of children like me whose life you touched unknowingly, even without any
physical or in some cases digital glimpse, would want to write to you something
similar.
I just
finished reading what your close aide
Mr. Srijan Pal Singh, who accompanied you in your travel wrote about
you, remembering you, your worries about the nation and humanity at large. Well
I never got a chance to know you by your revered presence. For me your presence
lay in those books you wrote, the books I loved to read, and gifted many of
them to my father on his birthdays. Because he is the one who had introduced
you to me and my world. He would tell me about your struggles as a child, and
how you went on to overcome them to become what you did.
And I
still read them Sir, every time I fail, every time I am dejected. All those words
of yours, about life , God and incessant effort are very much alive Sir. And you know
why they can't ever die? Because you infused immortal life in them, by being what
you said, by being that living example of incessant effort.
"Failure can never overtake me, if my
definition to succeed is strong enough", you once said. And when
eventually they came- failures, you accepted them with all your humility,
smiling through them and telling them, "you came because life wanted to
stretch me to my fullest potential, of which I myself was not aware." You
embraced them, took responsibility for them, and told them that they might have
been big failures, but the human in you was bigger. And despite all this, the
simplicity and humility you reflected made you even bigger.
Its said that love transcends all dimensions of space and time. Your love for students and our love for you, as a mentor and above it as that big yet humble human being you were, will transcend these ephemeral boundaries of life and death one day.
I remember you once came to my college, and the hall was so full I couldn't get a glimpse of you. I came back thinking that someday I will. Yes.
The universe curves, time bends.
We'll meet there someday sir.
That day, I'll look in your eye, and tell you how much you have meant to me, and to millions of those like me, who never met you in this three dimensional world.
But before that there is work to be finished. There are dreams to be fulfilled. And as I do that, your inspiration lives on Sir.
It does not die. And it does not let me die either, no matter what. You do not die Sir.
