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President A P J Abdul Kalam provided several anxious moments to his security personnel as he celebrated his visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram.
The first citizen, who spent 20 years at the VSSC in various capacities, did not allow protocol to come in the way of treading down memory lane. He walked through the sprawling complex unmindful of the rain.
"I know each and every inch of this campus. I drew a lot of inspiration from the banyan tree which was planted by Vikram Sarabhai," he told one of his former colleagues, pointing to the tree.
There was no holding back Kalam after he finished his formal function of delivering the first Sathish Dhawan memorial lecture. He broke the security cordon to rush to his former colleagues who sat in the audience.
The security personnel tried their best to control the situation, but they withdrew after Kalam, surrounded by his colleagues, walked though the main passage of the entire pandal, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries.
The press photographers and TV cameramen, who were kept at a distance by the security personnel, also seized the opportunity to click the President.
The mood was upbeat at the country's leading space research centre where over 5000 employees and their family members had gathered to listen to Kalam. They had made elaborate arrangements to make the homecoming a memorable experience for the President.
Kalam also took time off from his busy schedule to interact with scientists. He inquired about the progress of various projects and paid tributes to Sathish Dhawan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, in his lecture on 'vision and leadership', saying that he had learnt the leadership mantra from the scientist.
The leadership quality he saw in Dhawan was the humility to own failures and give credit for successes to his colleagues. "Though I was responsible for the failure of the experimental flight of SLV-3 (301) as the mission director, Dhawan took the brickbats. But when the next flight of SLV-3 (302) succeeded, he attributed the success to us," Kalam said.
"A technology-driven development is required to lift 300 million Indians living below the poverty line. The nation should utilize technology as the weapon for mobilizing financial resources required for development," he said.
He called upon science institutions in the country to use technology developed by them for the benefit of the common man in rural areas. "A time has come when common man wants to know how technology can help a small tribal settlement like Attappadi in Kerala or a village in Andhra Pradesh."
The President said vision and leadership were the qualities that lead a man towards success. It comprises management capabilities and noble leadership.
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