President meets Mandela, talks cricket, movies

Amid a battery of cameras and video photographers, Mandela walked in to this huge room in the premises of what is today Mandela Foundation. He had given up his walking stick and held Kalam’s hand.

‘‘I was his walking stick,’’ Kalam said later on board AI 001, his eyes gleaming. ‘‘The soul is mighty,’’ Mandela told him when Kalam asked how he survived all those years at Robben Island. ‘‘They had imprisoned a body not my soul.’’

At 86, Mandela’s wit is razor sharp. Someone said, ‘‘I want to ask you a question.’’ Pointing to his hearing aid, Mandela said: ‘‘I can’t hear difficult questions.’’

‘‘India,’’ Mandela went on to say had ‘‘played a leading role in certain directions. Also, it is the biggest democracy—and rightly so. We are very grateful to India (for supporting SA in her struggle against Apartheid).’’

‘‘Ever since I read Long Walk to Freedom, I had been wanting to meet him. Today, I was able to do that and I was inspired. For me, it was the best part of this Africa visit,’’ Kalam said.

He also asked him the one question he always wanted to; how did he manage to write his book in prison? ‘‘And Mandela told me how he used to make tea for the warden everyday. That would make the warden less harsh and would allow him to write. He said not every warden was educated and how you did not need education to be a good man. Some of the guards were good men, he said.’’

More questions followed. Like cricket, and a favourite batsman perhaps? ‘‘That’s a diplomatic question. If I mention one name, I would be unrecognising others. No person in my position will make such a diplomatic faux pas.’’

Another one was on the film that is being made on him. ‘‘No one has approached me yet. If anyone does I will cooperate.’’

At Durban, Kalam himself visited the Pietermaritzburg Railway Station where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of his first class seat on way to Pretoria as he was a ‘‘coloured man’’— an event that would change the course of his life.