Dr. Kalam and I went to Sarangpur, Gujarat, to present to Pramukh Swamiji Maharaj, the spiritual Guru of Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (BAPS), the first copy of the book, ‘Transcendence: My Spiritual Experiences with Pramukh Swamiji’, that I co-authored with Dr. Kalam. The book captured Dr. Kalam’s fellowship with Pramukh Swamiji, which started in 2001. Dr. Kalam called Pramukh Swamiji his ultimate teacher, who had positioned him in a God-synchronous orbit.

He asked me to speak, and it was perhaps the best moment and the highest point of my entire life. I said, “Good writers are known to fill an ocean in a pitcher. By working on this book, I could put two oceans together – an ocean of science and knowledge (Dr. Kalam) and an ocean of spirituality and love (Pramukh Swamiji). I seek nothing more from my destiny.” On our way back, Dr. Kalam asked me to learn more about the Ekantik Dharma and write a book on the same, sometime in the future. When I asked if he would guide me,  he replied in the negative, saying that I would do it alone. It turned out to be prophecy, as he passed away the next month.

I met the former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa (b. 1938), at Dar es Salaam. I was invited there for the release of the book, ‘Transcendence’, and met Indian origin Tanzanian Mahesh Pateljihere for the first time. I was deeply moved when a big, young, Tanzanian man approached me to thank me. I was told that, as a boy, he was operated on at the Care Hospital, Hyderabad, thanks to the initiative of President Kalam and V. Thulasidas, former Chairman of Air India. The entire team of doctors and nurses who were trained at the Care Hospitals in 2005-2006 turned up for the event, including Madam Eva Lilian Nzaro, former High Commissioner of Tanzania to India, now in her eighties.

President Benjamin Mkapa was in office from 1995 to 2005. When the socialistic policies failed to bring good living conditions to the Tanzanian people, the charismatic, anti-colonial activist and first president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere (1922-1999), identified Benjamin Mkapa as a harbinger of change. When I asked him for a message from him, he said that the need to set right the world order, was paramount. “When a jumbo jet crashes, we will rush in with assistance, but we forget that each day 30,000 children die unnecessarily from poverty-related preventable causes – equivalent to 100 jumbo jets crashing every day.”

My connection with Africa started with President APJ Abdul Kalam’s visit to Tanzania in September 2004. I did not go with him on this trip. Still, I got involved after he was told about the plight of Tanzanian children suffering from congenital (by birth) defects in the heart, where there is a hole in the wall that separates, the wall between the right and left ventricles (lower heart chambers), leading to the mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood returns from the body. This mixing reduces the amount of oxygen-rich blood pumped to the body, leading to lower blood oxygen levels and the bluish skin discolouration.

I was tasked to find a solution, leading me to Madam Eva Lilian Nzaro, the Tanzanian High Commissioner to India. One might easily confuse her for a lovely, cuddly grandmother as she has two grandkids living with her.  But with almost 30 years in diplomacy to draw on for experience, being an envoy, she was perhaps the best diplomat around. She came to India after serving as the Tanzanian Ambassador to the Russian Federation (Moscow) from 1998 to 2002.

Madam Eva Lilian Nzaro organised the selection of 24 children needing surgery. Air India lifted them with their mothers and a team of doctors and nurses and brought them to Hyderabad. They were all operated on at Care Hospital by Dr M Gopi Chand and his team and returned cured. When I met her in Dar Es Salaam, she ensured that one child, who had been operated on and is now a hefty, well-built man, also met me. She also gave me a bag of cashews, the best in the world. Madam Zaro passed away on February 14th, 2021. If there is one Angel I met in my life, it was her.

Dr. Kalam took me to the Young Indian Leaders’ Conclave in Gandhinagar. Chief Minister Narendra Modi received him and I was surprisingly included in what was supposed to be tête-à-tête. Modiji affectionately made me sit by his side. I was aware of the deep bonding Dr. Kalam had with Modiji. In 2002, he had visited Gujarat, contrary to the advice of the Central leadership, and walked through the riot-affected people’s camp in Naroda Patiya, holding Modiji’s hand. That gesture spoke more than any words and led to the arrival of a long-lasting peace in the state. 

Dr. Kalam left after his speech but asked me to attend the entire conclave, listen to what Modiji said in his concluding remarks and brief him accordingly. Of the many points that I conveyed, Dr. Kalam liked the call for 100% enrollment in schools, the most. He said if this were earnestly implemented, the secularism debate would automatically be settled. He said that the Chief Minister was moving in the right direction and that God would surely give him a bigger role. In retrospect, it seems Dr. Kalam had first sensed the winds of change.

After moving out of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2007, Dr Kalam lived at 10 Rajaji Marg in New Delhi, which became my address until his departure in 2015. I would be visiting him regularly and meeting his distinguished visitors. One such blessing was when the Dalai Lama dropped in to meet Dr Kalam. He was in New Delhi to receive the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice from the Harmony Foundation at a ceremony. The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) is the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. He was conferred the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

When Dr Kalam introduced me to His Holiness, he asked me to come closer, put my hand on his heart, and keep it there for a few moments. He spoke nothing, and I was speechless anyway. Not only that, but my mind also went blank. The Dalai Lama’s touch was both gentle and firm. I felt as if I were connected to a source of peace, and instantly, the clutter that always surrounded me as thoughts disappeared. It was unplanned and unexpected, but frozen in eternity as something unmovable in this transitory world. Later, when Prabhat Prakashan, New Delhi, invited me to translate the Dalai Lama’s biography written by Mr. Mayank Chhaya in Hindi, I used this picture there.