Chennai : I had known Abdul Kalam from his earlier stints in Sriharikota. Those days Sashi Kumar, Sampath Kumar myself and Yamuna Subramaniam had easy access to all the important areas like the Launch Pad, the Block houses the telemetry stations, Range Safety and so on. We normally stayed with the top scientists in their Guest houses. And spent a lot of time chatting with them. You can't forget the help of a very smart Senior administrative officer Mohammed Ikramullah. He knew our seriousness and had faith in what we were doing and was ready for any help.
Many times I remember having produced live shows from inside the Mission control room with Sashi Kumar in his stylish best reporting live without in anyway disturbing the proceedings.
Nowadays the entire TV channels are herded to gether like cattle on a building terrace far away from the important areas and what they get are images from the monitor. We were the blue eyed boys of TV.
In one the launches Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi was present and the rocket went down into the sea. We had this on record when she asked where Abdul Kalam is. Someone told her he is not the Mission Director. She said no wonder the rocket crashed in the sea. He told him come with me.
Next we were sitting again right royally chatting with Abdul Kalam on the Chandipur Beach in Orissa shooting the testing of the Agni Launch. Kalam knew us as PTI TV people and he freely chatted with us on all aspects of the Launch.
We used to admire his knowledge and liked the way he explained.
Once I remember while doing a story on the light combat aircraft, LCA in the Bangalore Air show, I asked the camera crew in this crowd how will I search for Kalam. Someone tapped my shoulder and said "I am very much behind you" and it was Kalam.
The HRD Ministry those days decided to use video films to train skilled people in rural areas and they were looking for Producers who can take up the task. Kalam was made the chief of the technology transmission. I came to know much later that in one of the files he wrote my name and said get him he is the best. He knew I was working with Sashi Kumar. I was quite busy producing news as senior producer of PTI TV. And I was reluctant to go.
The HRD people were after me and I finally thought let me try this. Thanks to this assignment I spent more time in rural areas..and I also became the trainer of trainers teaching people on how to use TV. I was training people from all over the world and I happened to get a chance to spend three months in NASA and I was lucky to shoot Kalpana Chawla's launch and the Controversial Cessini Launch which travelled Seven years to cross the Saturn Rings. Thanks to Abdul Kalam, I went back to covering Space and had a lovely time interacting with Astronauts and Astronaut trainers. After he became the President I distanced myself as I was no more in that beat.
All I know about him is he was a very jovial presence.
(Nishat Ahmed, a faculty for television at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai has shared this on FB)
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