A Search for you, Dr. Kalam

My dear readers, It has been a long time since I wrote something here.  It is also a sheer coincidence that this post is in memory of a legend (Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam), whereas my last post was also a tribute to another legend (Sri. Dakshinamurthy Swamy).  The news of Dr. Kalam's death came as a shock as nobody had even an iota of expectation.  I have had the good fortune of listening to him twice during his visit to my Institute.  He always exhibited high level of energy and enthusiasm.  He was constantly thinking of taking this country to greater heights and busy in preparing the next generation to take up this daunting task.  He occupied the highest office in the country and was honoured with the highest civilian award.  But none of this had any impact on him - he remained the same humble human being, caring for the people around him.  Today the print and electronic media is full of stories and instances to narrate the simplicity of Dr. Kalam, a man for whom, the saying "simple living and high thinking" was true till his last moment.  During the last three days, whenever I was free from my work, I was reading and thinking about Dr. Kalam, his life, his work and his contributions.  Based on all that I read and thought, I decided to jot down four qualities of him that made him stand apart.

1. Thirst for knowledge: He was always a student.  His curiosity to learn was not confined only to his area of expertise and research.  He believed in holistic learning.
2. Dedication and discipline: He exhibited complete dedication to whatever task he performed and was highly disciplined in executing the same.
3. Passion to disseminate knowledge: Mere acquisition of knowledge was not his aim, rather, he believed in passing it on to others.  Moreover, his interactions with children and youngsters is a classic example of how a highly learned man can come down to the level of the audience and explain things to them using simple examples and layman's language.
4. Compassion to humankind: He was always compassionate to the people around him.  He tried to understand the difficulties that people go through and tried to console them, even if he couldn't do anything more.

One can list many more qualities of Dr. Kalam.  But I feel, if we are able to inculcate at least the above qualities, we can go a long way in our life.  I believe that the above four qualities come naturally to a human being.  But, since we do not exercise enough care to nurture them on a continuous basis, these qualities remain subdued in us.  They surface once in a while in one form or the other, but are not sustained over long time.  Conscious and continuous efforts to practice these qualities is the only way to sustain them.  All these days we had Dr. Abdul Kalam as a living example, but now that he is gone, we need to keep searching for him within us.  When we start inculcating his qualities, when we start identifying ourselves with him and when we start exhibiting more and more dedication to our mission, discipline in our lives and compassion to others, Dr. Kalam would live through each one of us.  Let the search for him within us begin.