A compassionate mind

The year, 2009, was a turning point in Srijan Pal Singh’s life. He had graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad with a gold medal for the best all rounder student. He was keen to share the news with A P J Abdul Kalam, who was the co-faculty for the course, Globalising Resurgent India through Innovation Transformation, taught in their second year.

Singh had remained in constant contact with the former president ever since, so he wrote to him telling him about his achievement and also seeking an appointment. He was surprised to find an email in his inbox after a week, inviting him over to 10 Rajaji Mark, residence of Dr Kalam. “

This was our first meeting beyond the realms of the classroom,” recalls Singh. And during the course of the interaction, Dr Kalam asked him, “So, Srijan, you have been gifted with the best education, blessed with high intelligence and you have acquired the much sought-after golden recognition. Don’t you think that it is now your responsibility to use all this not only for your own progress, but also for the progress of the nation and for solving the problems of the world? Wouldn’t that be doing true justice to your abilities?”

Singh was shaken when he heard this because his sole purpose of meeting Dr Kalam at that time was to show him the medal, get his autograph and get some pictures clicked with him. As within the next three weeks he was going to join an international consulting firm.

However, he tells Metrolife that this was also the moment when he realised the “purpose of life”. “This realisation gave me the courage to walk on a course very different and unexplored. His words and thoughts are my guide – my teacher’s wisdom still persists,” he says, adding he immediately decided to change his mind and requested Dr Kalam to allow him to do a three-week internship with him.

Personal anecdotes like these make Singh’s new book What Can I Give? Life lessons from my Teacher, A P J Abdul Kalam (Penguin) a compelling read. Singh, who has closely worked with Dr Kalam on various research projects, and has co-authored three books – Target 3 Billion (2011), Reignited – Scientific Pathways to a Brighter Future (2015) and Advantage India (2015) with Dr Kalam before he passed away on July 27, 2015.

According to him, his association with Dr Kalam taught him the importance of having larger goals in life. “I would not have learnt to be patient, while the effort towards these goals fructify. And I would have definitely missed inheriting the values which make a person rise from very good to truly great,” he says.

Singh says that Dr Kalam lived a life where he firmly believed that true happiness comes from the principle of ‘what can I give’? However, he also points out how he had some huge concerns about the children and youth of today. “He was concerned about how easily today’s youngsters forget the many sacrifices and contributions of their parents in making them successful and independent in their lives,” he says.

The best way, according to Singh, to remember India’s ‘missile man’, was to go beyond monuments and symbols and walk the path he showed — improving education at the grass-roots, especially in government schools. “It is in creating centres of multicultural, multireligious learning, where youngsters can be taught values of humanity and the message of creating a liveable planet,” he says.

“At individual level, we all can remember him by reading about his values, his habits, his traits and imbibing them in our own lives and live like as he did,” he adds.