The method as vital as the message

The method was as important as the message. While ‘Work with integrity and succeed with integrity’, was one of the principal messages former President of India Prof. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam wanted to get through to his mainly young audience last Saturday, he more than ‘ignited’ their minds through the personal and one-to-one interaction he entered into with them in the course of his public speech at the SBMEC Auditorium, Colombo.

It could be said that his out-of- the-box mode of communication with the audience helped in ‘electrifying’ the minds around him and in entrancingly brain-storming them into thinking on the questions he posed. This went beyond simply ‘igniting’. Prof Kalam’s subject was, ‘Ignited Minds of the Youth is the Greatest Resource for the Nation’, and he preferred to reject the jaded and conventional ‘top-down’ form of address public speakers usually opt for.

Instead he preferred to get into a very friendly and warm question and answer session with the youngsters in his audience and did truly provoke them into thinking hard on the issues of our times. If there ever was a meeting of minds, this was it.

While dwelling on the essential prerequisites of the emerging Knowledge Society in contemporary times and connected issues, Prof. Kalam emphasized the following points.

The method adopted by the renowned Professor in Aerospace Engineering to underscore these points was to get the youngsters in his audience to repeat some of his pronouncements after him and that too very loud and clear:

*Nations should have ethics, so must societies, cities, neighbourhoods and families

*We need a compassionate society which respects life

*Beauty in character brings about harmony in the home

*I will always have goals and work hard to achieve them

*A small goal is a crime

*I will enjoy the success of others

*I will always ask, what can I give

*I will plant five saplings in Sri Lanka and make them grow

*I will work towards a Green Environment and Green Earth

The sense that the audience had listened to a visionary and exceptionally brilliant spirit was all around, at the conclusion of the address.

They felt that the message was all-important but so was the method.

The public speech was organized by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies, Colombo, the academic wing of the S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike National Memorial Foundation.

- Lynn Ockersz