The Pokhran brotherhood & 1,000 full moons

PRESIDENT A.P.J. Abdul Kalam still has good old memories of the Pokhran II days and of fellow architect of the project Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

PRESIDENT A.P.J. Abdul Kalam still has good old memories of the Pokhran II days and of fellow architect of the project Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

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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 “ideas” that came to his mind during the function.

Referring to his days as the scientific advisor to the defence minister and as the principal scientific advisor 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.

On the function, Kalam said he enjoyed the beauty of the full moon amid Pandit Jasraj’s divine music and a “good human being” at the centre stage.