To: [email protected] 
From: "naakannan"  | Block Address  | Add to Address Book 
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002 06:20:23 -0000 
Subject: [e-suvadi] Travel Diary 01.02.02 
Reply-to: [email protected] 
 
     
Dear Suvadians:

Prof.Krishnamurti of tamil OCR fame called me to find out whether
I would be interested in meeting Dr.Abdul Kalam. Dr.Subbaraman of
Anna University and Dr.Ponnavaiko of TVU had informed me earlier
that Barat Ratna Dr.Abdul Kalam had taken a Chair at Anna University.
I planned earlier to meet him and so I didn't miss the chance. We 
were 
accompanied by Dr.Lalitha Jayaraman, Director of Libraries, Anna Univ.
who has organized this meeting with Dr.Kalam.

We entered his office before the crowd of visitors flooded the 
premise. 
There was tight security. The guard was not sure whether my digital 
camera was a device of destruction or a photo apparatus. He had never 
seen a 
digital camera before. I operated it for him to show that it was an 
innocent 
invention. There was couple of academics waiting to see him before us 
and so had to wait for 20 minutes.

Dr.Abdul Kalam is a very fragile man of pleasant temperament. Deeply
interested in Tamil development apart from his deep commitment to 
Indian 
security. In Singapore- Minister of Trade and Industry George 
Yeo while delivering his talk in the conference on 'Tamil in 
International 
Arena' said amidst cheers that the Indian bomb was in fact a Tamil 
bomb !!

Hailing from a government secondary school in Rameswaram island
Dr.Abdul Kalam has raised himself to national/international level. 
Three
among the four in the room had similar background that is tamil medium
studies upto SSLC. Dr.Kalam showed keen interest in digitizing tamil
manuscripts, an interest shared by all of us. He asked several basic
questions on the topic. He, like many of us wanted the tamils to be
networked for commercial success. He asked us by quoting a Japanese
example whether Google could search the web when a tamil key word
was given and bring in results in a translated form of Tamil. It 
seems that
Japanese search engine does that. He wants to have the entire database
on tamil related materials in the web searchable and linked.

He congratulated our efforts at THF and offered his help. He asked me 
to meet a close friend of him, Dr.N.Balakrishnan, Director, Division 
of
Information Sciences and Services at IISc, Bangalore for further help.
Infact, I wanted to impress him by scanning a rare manuscript in 
tamil 
on missiles and rockets by the legendary Bogur of Palani. As expected
the Curator of OML refused to give me that particular suvadi giving
some excuses! Knowledge in Tamilnadu is still guarded and possed!
I will give a try once again tomorrow (patience! ..more patience...)

We spent nearly 45 minutes with him. Dr.Kalam showed us a memento
that he received where the following kuraL was inscribed:

  
¦ÅûÇò¾¨É ÁÄ÷ ¿£ð¼õ Á¡ó¾÷ìÌ
¯ûÇò¾¨É ÐÂ÷×.


Nobody other than him is a classical example of that kuraL. I asked 
him
whether he would join THF Indian team. He showed his inability to do 
so
because of his commitment of meeting a million students in the next 3 
years.
A huge task he has undertaken to inspire the young Indians for self 
pride
and self development (=national development). He offers his entire 
monthly
salary to help poor students to come up in life.

Dr.Abdul Kalam with his gentle nature and fragile body could do so 
much
for the Indian nation because his spirit is high and strong.

anbudan
Kannan