Meeting President Lula De Silva of Brazil was a great personal experience. He was invited as the Chief Guest of India on the occasion of the Republic Day 2004 and President APJ Abdul Kalam had hosted a dinner for him at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Not only did I get a seat at the dinner table, but President Kalam also briefed President Lula about the work he had assigned to me – developing civilian spinoffs of defence technology in the medical sector with the aim of reducing the costs of certain devices and materials which were not affordable in the 1990s (many of them are not affordable even today). 

President Lula held my hand in a tight grip with love and admiration. Such warmth is rarely seen in leaders who occupy high offices. In President Lula’s grip, I could feel the missing little finger of his left hand. Lula was born in poverty and earned his bread as a shoeshine boy. He started working in a factory as a teenager. When he was 19, his finger got crushed while working as a press operator in an automobile parts factory. Looking in his eyes, I could feel an indomitable spirit in flesh and blood. 

Brazil was ruled by the Military in those days. Young Lula joined the labor movement and rose to become the president of the Steel Workers’ Union in the ABCD Region, four industrial cities near Sao Paulo. Brazil got rid of military rule in 1985 and has been a stable democracy since then. A strident union organizer known for his bushy beard and Che Guevara T-shirts, Lula was an icon, even before he won the 2002 Presidential elections. 

President Lula became a great friend of India. He was honored with the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 2006 and the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2010, before he served two terms as president and left office on 1 January, 2011. His Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) program is a shining example of what a committed leader can do for his people. Under Lula’s presidency, not only did Brazil become the world’s eighth largest economy and the sixth largest shipping industry in the world, but 20 million people were also lifted out of poverty. 

In the 2010 elections, Lula’s Chief of Staff – Dilma Rousseff was elected President of Brazil. She won a second term in 2014. But then, every rise is followed by a fall, as day is followed by night. In 2016, she was impeached for corruption charges and removed from presidency. In 2018, Lula was the front runner, but was arrested and sentenced to a prison term for ‘passive corruption’ charges, ending the Left-rule, and Right-wing politician Jair Bolsonaro became the President, ending the long rule of the Left Party. 

I was at the Rashtrapati Bhawan with two great doctors – Dr. Kakarla Subbarao (b. 1925) and Dr. B. Soma Raju (b. 1948). I met them first when I was admitted to the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in an emergency, in January 1986. Dr. Subbarao was Director, NIMS, and Dr. Soma Raju was Chief of Cardiology. A special bond developed from that seemingly awkward moment between the four of us – Dr. Kalam, Dr. Subbarao, Dr. Soma Raju and I – that led to the setting up of the International School in 1991 by Dr. Subbarao, inspired by Dr. Kalam, and the creation of India’s first coronary stent (Kalam-Raju) stent.

In 2002, I wrote ‘A Doctor’s Story of Life & Death’, based on the life and insights of Dr. Subbarao. It was reprinted in 2012 and sought after by serious seekers of answers about human health and mortality. In my book, ‘Guiding Soul’ (published in 2005), when I asked Dr. Kalam, “Is it necessary that we should be inspired by those who lived in the past, or can even people who are alive be our guides?” Dr. Kalam answered, “Difficult. Ego normally comes in between two living people.” When I asked if could he name any living person who inspired him, he instantly replied, “Dr. Verghese Kurien (b. 1921) and Dr. Kakarla Subbarao.”

 When, in 2012, a student asked Dr. Kalam which work of his gave him the most happiness, Dr. Kalam replied that it was the development of the stent. He said that achievements related to one’s business, job or hobby are selfish pursuits. It is the work you do keeping others in mind, that counts in the eyes of God. Dr. Kalam went on to share that once, when travelling by train to Dehradun from Delhi, a person approached him and said with folded hands, “Sir, I am carrying two of your stents in my heart.” He said that no Bharat Ratna, no presidency, no whatever could match the gratitude in the eyes of that man on the train.

I accompanied President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to Arunachal Pradesh. We flew in from Delhi to Guwahati and shifted to Mi-8 helicopters, which majestically rise to 15,000 ft to cross over the Sela Pass. It was the first time I experienced a helicopter ride. And what a first time it was! We landed in Tawang. I was not prepared for the cold. The bright sun and clear blue sky were very deceptive. The loving-kind Chief Minister, Mukut Mithi, asked someone to get me a traditional jacket.

I had heard about Tawang as a child, when the Chinese had invaded this region, called NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency), later renamed as Arunachal Pradesh, the place where the sun arrives earliest on the Indian territory. I always felt special relating it with my own name. The next day was Dr. Kalam’s 72’nd birthday. We spent a good time inside the huge Tawang Monastery, known in Tibetan as Gaden Namgyal Lhatse, meaning, ‘celestial paradise in a clear night’. “What is root cause of the problems of the world?” Dr. Kalam asked Rinpoche (the head monk). “Me and Mine,” came the curt and crisp and unambiguous reply.

While leaving, official photographer of the President Samar Mondal captured a fleeting moment when I was standing with the monks, which has become my best photo ever clicked. I later visited Tawang with my wife and sons and took many pictures, but the magic of this snap never returned. Though it was a fleeting moment, it was not a frozen moment; it pulsates in my heart and I can feel it anytime.