Krishnan 1
Analysing the Depiction of the Common Man in the Works of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
- R. Krishnan, CIR Dept., Amrita University, [email protected]
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Abstract: It is interesting to see how Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam gave the ‗common man‘ his pride of place in the annals of contemporary Indian Literature. This paper is based on the depiction of the ‗common man‘ in a few select works of Dr. Kalam – Wings of Fire,
Ignited Minds, Indomitable Spirit, Luminous Sparks, You are Born to Blossom and India
2020. For example, the ‗common man‘ is personified in his father, Jainulabdeen. Other common man personalities, including the teacher as the common man are then examined.
Common issues, concerns and aspirations of the common man are scrutinised. The typical trials, tribulations, and disappointments faced by the common man in his day-to-day life are also evident in different facets in his writings. The fact that the author, Dr. Kalam dedicates his books to individuals who typify the common man is also analysed. Even Dr. Kalam‘s own
‗common man‘ personality is studied, in view of which he led a very simple life, without accumulating any material wealth in his lifetime and therefore came to be called as the
‗People‘s President‘. Through these different angles, it is concluded that the configuration of the common man has gained in form and substance through the sterling works of Dr. Kalam in modern Indian literature.
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Main Paper: If someone were to look at a commonly accepted definition of ‗the common man‘, one would come across several interesting ones. The Free Dictionary defines one as a person who has no title; in other words signifying a common person or commoner.
Wikipedia also refers to something similar, and additionally describes what I grew up reading
– the most vivid character depicted in caricature format through skilfully sketched cartoons that appeared regularly under the ―You Said It‖ series by R.K. Laxman, published in the daily Krishnan 2 editions of The Times of India newspaper. As per the source, ‗For over a half of a century, the
Common Man has represented the hopes, aspirations, troubles and perhaps even foibles of the average Indian‘(Wikipedia). It is also interesting to note from a Times report titled ‗Rushdie and the Common Man‘, by Nina Martyris, that ‗Salman Rushdie ... mentions the Common
Man in two of his books — his 1995 Mumbai novel The Moor's Last Sigh and his 2012 autobiography, Joseph Anton‘. There is unequivocal agreement, however, that the common man alludes to an ordinary, nondescript individual, neither rich nor famous, often paled into insignificance by the mundane, routine activities of daily life; representing the average, middle-class person, who is right in the middle of the scale in terms of standard of living that starts with the impoverished, below-the-poverty line segment on one extreme and ends with the filthy rich category on the other.
While looking at the landscape of contemporary Indian writing, I have discerned a perceptible importance in stature and significance being accorded to ‗the common man‘ in the works of the author, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Although better known as a distinguished scientist and as the President of India, it is my firm belief that this author of over two dozen books has been a force to reckon with and must be accorded due acknowledgement in the field of contemporary Indian Literature. He masterfully presents ordinary personalities that typify the common man, in his inimitable style, which I reckon is unmistakeably awesome. It is noteworthy that apart from his own poems that figure in his writings, the narratives are often interspersed with quotes from T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Auden, S.T. Coleridge, Emerson and
Lewis Carroll. Let us look at some of the instances of the common man being eulogised by the author, Dr. Kalam.
One of the characters described at length in his works, is Dr. Kalam‘s father,
Jainulabdeen, who is a typical ‗common man‘, given due importance, if not glorified, in spite of his simple, humble, ordinary, middle-class image. In Wings of Fire, he is described as a Krishnan 3 person who ―had neither much formal education nor much wealth; despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit‖ (Kalam 3).
He is portrayed further as an ‗austere‘ person, who ―used to avoid all inessential comforts and luxuries‖ (Kalam, Wings 3). On the passing away of his father, Dr. Kalam recounts: ―In worldly terms, it was the death of just another old man. No public mourning was organized, no flags were lowered to half-mast, no newspaper carried an obituary for him. He was not a politician, a scholar, or a businessman. He was a plain and transparent man‖ (Kalam, Wings
85). This is probably the closest that we could get to a detailed description of a common man, and that is one reason why I feel strongly for the argument that Dr. Kalam‘s works really depict the common man in the perfect manner, that conveys to the reader the exact portrayal that matches with reality. It gains additional credibility from the fact that none of us would have probably heard, read or known about Mr. Jainulabdeen, prior to reading this book! Again, in the chapter titled, ‗Living is doing‘ of the book, You are Born to Blossom,
Dr. Kalam says, ―I have seen in my father, who lived for 103 years, a detached yet active concern for life. He remains the wisest person of all powerful and learned people I have ever met‖ (Kalam, Blossom 85).
It is evident from the description of several other characters in Dr. Kalam‘s works, that he accorded utmost importance to the ‗common man‘. Take for instance the relative,
Ahmed Jallaluddin, who later became his brother-in-law. He is described as one whose schooling ―had been limited, principally because of his family‘s straitened circumstances‖
(Kalam, Wings 7). It is this person that Dr. Kalam declares as his mentor, who spoke to him about the power of positive thinking. Another ‗common man‘ described by Dr. Kalam is his first cousin, Samsuddin, who helped the former earn his first wages. The author acknowledges in his autobiography:―... it was the time I spent with Jallaluddin and
Samsuddin that perhaps contributed most to the uniqueness of my childhood and made all the Krishnan 4 difference in my later life. The unschooled wisdom of Jallaluddin and Samsuddin was so intuitive and responsive to non-verbal messages, that I can unhesitatingly attribute my subsequently manifested creativity to their company in my childhood‖ (Kalam, Wings 8).
This is indeed a supreme salutation to the presence of and value-added contribution made by the ubiquitous common man who manifests himself in a myriad different ways in different walks of life. Without losing sight of this impregnable yet underrated force, Dr. Kalam accords the common man his pride of place.
The book, Ignited Minds has an even greater acknowledgement to the common man.
In fact, the entire book has been dedicated by Dr. Kalam to a child named Snehal Thakkar of
Anandalaya High School, Anand, whom he met during a visit to the school in April 2002. At that time Anand was under curfew due to communal disturbances. In response to his query on
‗Who is our enemy?‘; of all the different answers received, he says that there was unanimous agreement on one correct response given by that girl – ‗Our enemy is poverty.‘ Indeed this is a wonderful instance of towering importance being ascribed to the common man – in this case, a small school-girl, to whom he has dedicated the whole book (Kalam, Ignited Minds v).
Let us take the case of another instance evident from a different work of Dr. Kalam. If one reads the book, Indomitable Spirit, one comes across a description of his teacher in the fifth class, Sri Siva Subramania Iyer, who took his entire class to the sea-shore in the evening to explain the concept of how birds fly – lift, drag, flight formation, etc. Dr. Kalam eulogises this ordinary mortal – who represents the common man – when he says the ―advice and the bird flying demonstration provided by my teacher gave me a goal and a mission for my life. It proved to be a turning point in my life which eventually shaped my profession and transformed my life as a rocket engineer, aerospace engineer and technologist‖ (Kalam,
Indomitable Spirit 27). Very often, scores of nondescript souls are involved in the not-so- Krishnan 5 glamorous, yet important back-end, foundational function that is considered as the simple, humble and noble profession of teaching. Teachers have often been the inspirational and motivational force, and actually been instrumental in guiding, teaching, coaching and mentoring several great achievers. Acknowledged by very few successful professionals, they epitomise the ‗common man‘ image, in Dr. Kalam‘s writings.
The book India 2020which has been authored by Dr. Kalam along with Mr. Y. S.
Rajan is also a book dedicated to the common man – a ten-year old girl who approached the writer for his autograph after he had finished delivering one of his talks. When Dr. Kalam asked what her ambition was, she replied that she wanted to live in ―a developed India‖. Dr.
Kalam mentions before the preface, that the book ―is dedicated to her and the millions of
Indians who share her aspiration‖ (Kalam, India 2020 v). These ‗millions of Indians‘ whom he refers to, represent the ordinary people, which often in the political lingo, especially of the
National Capital Region, are said to be the ‗aam aadmi‘, a translation of ‗the common man‘ in the national language of India.
Chapter 10 of India 2020 is titled ―Health Care for All‖. In this section, Dr. Kalam identifies several issues like disease prevention, sanitation, drinking water, maternal and child health. His vision for health is ―for all Indians‖ and therefore, ―the common man‖. He says,
―The richer and more powerful sections of our society should realize that the health of their less-privileged countrymen is their problem as well. They can go to the USA or UK for a cardiac examination or a surgery but they cannot escape an infectious epidemic in India very long... Health administrators should learn to treat health as people‘s pain and agony, not as files. Similarly, politicians at all levels should learn to look at pain removal as part of their duty‖ (Kalam, India 2020 240). We see that he brings out common concerns of the common man, and isn‘t limited to viewing the extremes of abject poverty on one hand or the affluent, privileged, elite class on the other. Krishnan 6
In the ―Afterword‖ to India 2020, the vision for the common man in India is very well articulated thus:
India is a nation of a billion people. A nation‘s progress depends upon how its
people think. It is thoughts which are transformed into actions. India has to
think as a nation of a billion people. Let the young minds blossom – full of
thoughts, the thoughts of prosperity. (305)
Thus the concept of the common man, follows the scientific principle of the law of averages – it therefore represents the average middle-class population more than the ones living in slums or the billionaires dwelling in their palatial towers and penthouse cottages.
Nevertheless, while carefully avoiding the extremes, we must keep in mind that Dr. Kalam had an inclusive philosophy of the common man. For example, in The Luminous Sparks, while he writes about his friend and classmate, Ramaswamy in the poem ‗Harmony‘ (10), or his co-passenger friend Vidyasagar in ‗The Life Tree‘(51), he also composes a poem titled
‗Children of God‘ for the physically challenged who participated in the Olympiad (44).
Another characteristic of the common man is the usual tussle he has in life to attain work-life balance, that is, family commitments versus job responsibilities. This is beautifully portrayed in Dr. Kalam‘s own ‗common man‘ image which manifests itself in the following paragraph:
I sat for a long time with my mother, but could not speak. She blessed me in a
choked voice when I took leave of her to return to Thumba. She knew that she
was not to leave the house of her husband, of which she was the custodian,
and I was not to live with her there. Both of us had to live out our own
destinies. Was I too stubborn or was I excessively preoccupied with the SLV?
Should I not have forgotten for a while my own affairs in order to listen to Krishnan 7
her? I regretfully realised this only when she passed away soon afterwards.
(Kalam, Wings 86)
Many more such instances are seen in his works.
The ‗Introduction‘ section to the book, Wings of Fire, mentions the typical emotional bumpy rides that a common man normally goes through along with the successes and disappointments he faces in life. Dr. Kalam says, ―Was it worth the reader‘s while, I wondered, to know about the tribulations and triumphs of a small town boy? Of the straitened circumstances of my school days, the odd jobs I did to pay my school fees, and how my decision to become a vegetarian was partly due to my financial constraints as a college student...it did seem germane to include the accounts of my frustrated attempt to become an
Air Force pilot and of how I became, instead of the Collector my father dreamed I would be, a rocket engineer‖ (Kalam, Wings xiv).
Again, in Wings of Fire, when the first experimental flight trial of SLV-3 failed in the second stage on 10 August 1979, Dr. Kalam describes it thus:
The incident caused us profound disappointment. I felt a strange mix of anger
and frustration. Suddenly, I felt my legs become so stiff that they ached. The
problem was not with my body; something was happening in my mind.
The premature death of my hovercraft Nandi, the abandoning of the RATO,
the abortion of the SLV-Diamont fourth stage – all came alive in a flash, like a
long buried Phoenix rising from its ashes. Over the years, I had somehow
learned to absorb these aborted endeavours, had come to terms with them and
pursued fresh dreams. That day, I re-lived each of those setbacks in my deep
despondency. (93)
Later, he reasons out that other successful people like Johannes Kepler, Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky, Prof. Chandrasekhar would have faced innumerable instances of failures before Krishnan 8 tasting success. ―How many failures must von Braun have gone through before his Saturn launch vehicle put man on the moon? These thoughts helped to give me the ability to withstand apparently irreversible setbacks‖ (Kalam, Wings 97). No wonder, Dr. Kalam‘s books have sold millions of copies and have been translated into several languages.
Managing Director of Penguin Publications, Udayan Mitra is quoted as saying ―Kalam being a self-made man was an instant connect with the common man and students. His writing was simple and easily understandable‖ (Sivakumar, Kalam Wielded ‘kalam’ with Flair).
Finally, look at the description of Dr. Kalam himself, in the first few lines of The
Wings of Fire. He starts with the words, ‗I was born into a middle-class Tamil family‘ (3). He goes on to describe himself as ‗one of many children – a short boy with rather undistinguished looks‘ (Kalam, Wings3). He says that he normally ate with his mother, on a banana leaf, ‗sitting on the floor of the kitchen‘(Kalam, Wings 4). One has to keep in mind that the humble profile is something that Dr. Kalam maintained till the end. It was not a
‗rags-to-riches‘ story. Here is an account of Javed Ansari as penned in Daily O: ‗In material terms, the "People's President", it now transpires, owned precious little, save his 2,500 books, a wristwatch, six shirts, four trousers, three suits, and a pair of shoes. Kalam did not own any property, fridge, TV, car or AC... He neither died in penury, nor did he live a life of luxury‘.
What could have been more befitting than this description of his to prove that he maintained the ‗status and lifestyle of the common man‘?
In his article titled "How the People's President taught the common man to dream", P
Dhanapal writes how the former President of our nation gave importance to the common man of our country. He mentions that Dr. Kalam ‗always sought to interact with ordinary people‘.
I quote him here:
It was in their ordinariness that he found his best moments. Wherever he went,
Dr. Kalam met them with unmitigated passion of a curious child. I have met Krishnan 9
him innumerable times when he was visiting Chennai or Coimbatore. Over 50
per cent of his visitors during those occasions were unknown people from
modest backgrounds. They would have dropped him an email - he would be an
auto driver, a teacher from a little-known school, or simply a daily-wage
labourer. With everyone of them, Dr. Kalam would spend quality time. By
doing so he was offering them a slice of his life. He would think about them
and keep talking about them. For the most part of his entire life Dr. Kalam
thought about ordinary people, about whether he could bring change in their
lives through what he believed in. (Dhanapal, People’s President)
This offers ample proof of the fact that the ‗People‘s President‘ gave the common man his pride of place.
To say that the author, Dr. A.P. J. Abdul Kalam, imparted vigour, vitality and significance to the stature, image and depiction of the ‗common man‘ in contemporary Indian literature through his writings, would be no exaggeration. If the revered cartoonist R. K.
Laxman connected with the common man through his lively sketches, Dr. Kalam did exactly the same through his vivid writing. Upon analysing the depiction of the common man in all his works, it may be stated with conviction that there would be unanimous agreement amongst all contributors and connoisseurs of contemporary Indian literature on the edification and deification of the ‗common man‘ by Dr. Kalam.
Works Cited
Ansari, Javed M. What Kalam Left Behind, Apart From His Legacy. Daily O. 4 Aug., 2015.
Web. 30 Oct. 2015. man-drdo-left-behind-apart-from-his-legacy/story/1/5463.html> Krishnan 10 Dhanapal, P. How the People's President Taught the Common Man to Dream. Daily O. 28 July 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2015. kalam-missile-man-a-little-dream/story/1/5285.html> Free Dictionary, The. Farlex Inc. 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2015. Kalam, Abdul A. P. J. Ignited Minds: Unleashing the power within India. New Delhi: Penguin Books. 2002. Print. Kalam, Abdul A. P. J. Indomitable Spirit. Delhi: Rajpal & Sons. 2010. Print. Kalam, Abdul A. P. J. The Luminous Sparks: A Biography in Verse and Colours. Bangalore: Punya Publishing. 2005. Print. Kalam, Abdul A. P. J., and Arun K Tiwari. You Are Born To Blossom: Take my journey beyond. Delhi: Ocean Paperbacks. 2008. Print. Kalam, Abdul A. P. J., and Arun Tiwari. Wings of Fire: An autobiography. Hyderabad: Universities Press. 1999. Print. Kalam, Abdul A. P. J., and Y. S. Rajan. India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium. New Delhi: Viking – Penguin Books India. 1998. Print. Martyris, Nina. Rushdie and the Common Man. Times News Network. The Times of India. 28Jan. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2015. the-Common-Man/articleshow/46037046.cms> Sivakumar, B. Kalam Wielded ‘kalam’ with Flair. Times News Network. The Times of India. 28July 2015.Web. 20 Oct. 2015. wielded-kalam-with-flair/articleshow/48244507.cms> Wikipedia, Wikipedia Foundation Inc. 23 Oct. 2015. Web. 31 Oct. 2015.