President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam still has fond memories of the Pokhran II days and of the project’s fellow architect, A.B. Vajpayee.
On January 14, Kalam had attended a function to mark Vajpayee's witnessing 1,000 full moons in his life. Two days later, Kalam wrote to Vajpayee, conveying some of his “ideas that came to mind during the function”.
Referring to his days as the scientific adviser to the defence minister and as the principal scientific adviser to the government, Kalam wrote: “Whenever I came to you, you used to ask me aapka Pokhran kaisa hai. (And) I used to say Pokhran bahut khoobsurat hai.”
Sent as a “tribute”, the letter also contained a correction: Vajpayee had seen more full moons than what had been calculated.
He wrote that the moon orbits around the earth every 29.53 days and the earth orbits around the sun. “Vajpayeeji, you have orbited around the sun 81 times, and presently you are in the 82nd orbit. Naturally, when you are orbiting around the sun being on the earth, you have seen more than 1,000 full moons,” he wrote.
Kalam wrote that on watching Vajpayee celebrate his 1,000th full moon, he was reminded of Lord Krishna’s Vishwaroopa Darshan, witnessing which, Arjuna had exclaimed: “Oh! Kesava, I see in you light of a thousand suns.”
{{/usCountry}}Kalam wrote that on watching Vajpayee celebrate his 1,000th full moon, he was reminded of Lord Krishna’s Vishwaroopa Darshan, witnessing which, Arjuna had exclaimed: “Oh! Kesava, I see in you light of a thousand suns.”
{{/usCountry}}About the January 14 function, Kalam said he enjoyed the beauty of the full moon amid Pandit Jasraj’s music and a “good human being” at the centre stage.