File Photo: President Pranab Mukherjee
APJ Abdul Kalam who worked to strengthen the country's defence and security backbone was also a "poet" at heart, President Pranab Mukherjee said today while reminiscing his "friendship" with the former Supreme Commander of the armed forces.
"He enhanced defence capabilities of the country. He used to write poems. Sometimes when we used to go to pay respects to the departed soldiers at Amar Jawan Jyoti, he would compose a poem, he would not recite there, but he would quietly pass on the poem.... I received two-three poems," Mr Mukherjee said on a special flight to the national capital.
The President said his personal interaction with him was very deep as initially in United Progressive Alliance or UPA-I Mr Mukherjee was the defence minister and Dr Kalam was the Supreme Commander of the armed forces.
"Besides, he was interested in the Bramhos missile and asked me how to promote it. And now with his direct encouragement, we have Bramhos missiles for all three services."
"Earlier, it was only surface-to-surface, now surface-to-air, air-to-air and from navy to air. And it is the only indigenous cruise missile. It was completely done by him and his other colleague. A Sivathanu Pillai was his chosen person," he said.
Mr Mukherjee was speaking to reporters while rushing to the national capital, cancelling all his programmes scheduled in Karnataka after hearing of the death of the former President in Shillong yesterday.
Later, the President was at the Delhi airport today where he paid homage to Kalam whose mortal remains were brought from Shillong.
Calling Dr Kalam a mighty mind, the President said "his void cannot be filled."
"Really I felt some sort of vacuum when I heard the news. I did not expect although he was aging but was hail and hearty and always jovial, brilliant, his mind never ceased to function. He has a mighty mind," Mr Mukherjee said.
When asked about Dr Kalam being called 'People's President', Mr Mukherjee said, "He was people's President. Even during his Presidency, he was the people's President. Even after his death he will continue to be people's President."
"No President was ever loved so much. Nehru has earned love and affection of children and after that we found Kalam. Sometimes when he was with children, it appeared to me that he is Nehru in another form. He was always inspiring new ideas, new thoughts."
Recounting his first interaction with Dr Kalam, Mr Mukherjee said, "My first interaction with Dr Kalam was when he was the scientific advisor to Raksha Mantri and after the Pokharan blast Prime Minister Vajpayee invited the Congress Party leaders -- myself, Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and a couple of others were present and the technical aspects of explosions were explained by him. It was an impressive presentation."
The President said his formal interactions with Dr Kalam started from 2004 onwards when he became Defence Minister in UPA and developed because the two had great affinity for books.
"He loved books and he lives with them. His world was around books... I am always surrounded by the books besides he was such a prolific writer so that was the commonality," he said.
Dr Kalam even coaxed Mr Mukherjee to write books saying "your production compared to your reading is much less".
Dr Kalam was a prolific writer. Some of his well known works are Wings of Fire, Ignited Minds, Turning Points, Mission India: a vision for Indian youth and The Scientific Indian. He also penned 'The Life Tree', a collection of poems.