HE DIED WITH HIS BOOTS ON
Pic.: Pradeep Nanda “To shine like the sun, first burn like the sun.” - APJ Abdul Kalam T his eleventh-standard (ISC) girl called me just now. “Sir, do we have class today?” “Of course yes,” I said, “why, what happened?” “Sir don’t you know ‘our President’ – APJ Abdul Kalam died?” “Yes beta , I know,” I said, almost choked, “he died with his boots on… Please come for the class at 3.” I do not know if this sixteen-year-old understood what those words – ‘He died with his boots on’ – meant… and why I was using it, in the current context… This girl comes from a different generation… Not the kind who would be easily fascinated by the kind of lifestyle – unbelievably simple for a highly qualified, acclaimed and, above all, for a nation’s President - Kalamji chose to live by… or the kind of rustic dialect with which he spoke… Yes, there was nothing visible that could fire up the imagination...