last salam to man who Ignited Minds

The stage is all set to lay APJ Abdul Kalam to rest — the former President of India, who died in Shillong on Monday evening — in Rameswaram, 560 km from Chennai at 11 am on Thursday at a special graveyard allocated exclusively for the former President by the Tamil Nadu Government.As the chief priest of Rameswaram town will lead the Namaz E Janaza, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his Cabinet colleagues and Chief Ministers from various States would be in attendance at the graveyard to offer final salute to the Bharat Ratna awardee.  

The mortal remains of Kalam was flown to Rameswaram from Madurai by an IAF helicopter on Wednesday afternoon and was received at the airport by Governor K Roseaiah, a team of Ministers led by O Panneerselvam representing the State of Tamil Nadu, and other senior Government  officials. Venkaiah Naidu, Manohar Parrikar, Shahnawaz Hussain, and Pon Radhakrishnan accompanied the body. 

The temple town came to a standstill as thousands gathered at the city centre where Kalam’s body was brought for the general public to pay their homages. “I have never seen the town in such a state of mourning since the 1964 cyclone which claimed nearly 2,000 lives,” D Kuppuramu, senior BJP leader and a resident of Rameswaram told The Pioneer.

According to Kuppuramu, the Maraikkar family to which Kalam belonged where the official boatmen of the famous Rameswaram Temple one of the reasons behind the former President’s special ties with the temple.After the customary prayers at Madurai airport, a special helicopter of the IAF carried the body to Rameswaram city centre. The body was taken to “House of Kalam”, the ancestral home of the late President for the family members to pay their respect and offer prayers.

Special buses were pressed into service to transport people from Chennai to Rameswaram and back for them to pay homages to Kalam, described by Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa as Tamil Nadu’s youth icon and great son.While Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fly down to Rameswaram on Thursday morning to attend the State funeral, Jayalalithaa had to cancel her trip on health grounds. “I have great affection and respect for Abdul Kalam. I would like to attend his funeral and pay my respects to him. However, owing to my health conditions, I am not in a position to travel,” Jayalalithaa said in a release. Tamil Nadu will observe a  holiday on Thursday as a mark of respect to the former President.

Students and youths from different parts of Tamil Nadu have reached Rameswaram in large numbers to bid farewell to the former President, who motivated and inspired them to dream about a resurgent and developed India. “Having listened to Dr Kalam a number of times, our outlook itself underwent a major change. It was he who inspired me to take up development plans for the upliftment of the poor,” said a young Santhosh, electronics student from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, who reached Rameswaram on Wednesday morning to offer floral tributes to Kalam. A group of 20 students are accompanying Santhosh.