Saturday, December 03, 2005

Who else

A gentleman was member of the Central Board of Directors of our organization. The meeting of the Central Board was to be held at Bhopal. I, being posted at Delhi at that time, was to coordinate the stay and transport arrangements for the Delhi based members at the place of the meeting. So I contacted the gentleman, asking him his preference of stay at Bhopal. Generally the memebrs were put up in a five star hotel at the place of the meeting. He asked me whether our organisation had a guest house there, to which I replied in afirmative. He said " just put a cot for me there, that's all I need". Please scroll down.
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You will like to know his name.
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Well, it was none other than Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who else. This was a few days, before he took over as President Of India









5 comments:

Capt N.S.Bisht said...

Hi Balli,
Just saw your blog after my return from Delhi. I had gone to attend the XVth International Seminar on Total Loss Prevention conducted by IISSM at Hotel Le- Meridien from 05 to 09 Dec 2005. It was a good outing both in terms of value addition and completion of certain odd jobs at Delhi. Coming down to your post, yeah Dr Abdul Kalam is inded a great personality. We are fortunate to have inteacted with him. On one occasion I saw him standing patiently in the queue for check in at the airport counter at Delhi. When I approached him for offering my assistance he did not decline but engaged me in conversation till his turn came and he did the needful himself much to my discomfiture. Even the Indian Airlines staff were feeling odd but he was totally nonchalant about the whole thing. On another occasion I received him on return from one of our Central Board Meetings and he asked me why did I take the trouble. He thanked me profusely and told me that I could not accompany him owing to the entourage of Security which was going to surround him the moment he got out of the airport. Getting to know him was truly a humbling.

anant said...

did you met him personally?.

Balvinder Balli said...

Anant, yes certainly i met Dr APJ Abdul Kalam at a number of occassions, since he was the member of our Central Board, but of course, before his taking over as President of India. It was a treat to listen to him on a wide range of subjects. His 'down to earth' approach and his modesty reflected in every word and every action of his. He detested the security ring thrown around him. He would often send back the officials from the airport who had gone to receive him as part of protocol. He would himself stand in the queue at the airport check in counter rather making some one else stand there and wait in the VIP lounge like other big guns did.

In fact we needed him as our President for some more time to usher the country into being a superpower. But our dirty politics has prevented that.

Thanks for visiting.

J P Joshi said...

Should have guessed......who else but APJ

Balvinder Balli said...

Yes JP, bearing in mind that material that we have to day in our political institutions APJ stands apart. There were such leaders before also like Lal Bahadur Shastri amongst a few others, but alas no more now.