- News>
- Newspapers
From Dada Nehru to Chacha Kalam!: The Times of India
New Delhi, Nov 14: Move over Chacha Nehru, Chacha Kalam is here. Today, there is no one more deserving of the fond sobriquet `Chacha` than the President - ask the little ones.
New Delhi, Nov 14: Move over Chacha Nehru, Chacha Kalam is here. Today, there is no one more deserving of the fond sobriquet ‘Chacha’ than the President – ask the little ones.
Come November 14, the birth anniversary of the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Abdul Kalam heads off to do what he likes to do most. Spend time with children on Children’s Day. He shall do that on Friday too, this time with kids in Nagpur. But for him, it is not a once-a-year ritual.
President Kalam meets groups of schoolchildren at least once a week. And he would rather spend time with them, than on matters of bureaucracy. These sessions are strictly interactive and teachers accompanying the group are told in no uncertain terms that they may not interrupt. The President frowns on any prompting or rehearsed speeches and will even admonish a teacher who prompts a child.
He loves spontaneity and encourages children to speak their mind. Every speech of the President has reference to the next generation. Children identify with him and when he took oath of office last year, the galleries in Parliament’s Central Hall were filled with children. Kalam had insisted on it This is not to take anything away from Nehru. He was a visionary who envisaged a stronger future for Indian children. It has never been an erosion of respect to become a Dada from a Chacha. If the learnings from "Kyuki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" can captivate a nation, its converse logic should hold good in every Indian's life. Fifty-six years after independence and 36 years after his death , Pandit Nehru's soul would only be too happy to see the same children whom he once patted and hugged, grow up and pass on to their next generations the same love that he had once showered on them. Those children are living that future. And their children are lucky to have yet another visionary in their time to dream for them – President Kalam.
Nehru loved children and spent a lot of time with them too. The image is vivid – a handsome, avuncular man with Gandhi cap and rose in his button smiling down at the tots. But it is an image from another era. Of a chacha to generations that are themselves chachas now.
For today’s children, that is just a textbook image. Sepia-tinted and too remote to relate to. Nehru does not mean to them what he did to their parents or grandparents. And so Children’s Day on November 14 is actually just a holiday or a day full of fun events at school.
They can’t be blamed. The parents of most five-to-ten-year-olds were not even born when Nehru died. For today’s kids, Nehru has to become a proud Dada Nehru. For there is only one Chacha.
Come November 14, the birth anniversary of the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Abdul Kalam heads off to do what he likes to do most. Spend time with children on Children’s Day. He shall do that on Friday too, this time with kids in Nagpur. But for him, it is not a once-a-year ritual.
President Kalam meets groups of schoolchildren at least once a week. And he would rather spend time with them, than on matters of bureaucracy. These sessions are strictly interactive and teachers accompanying the group are told in no uncertain terms that they may not interrupt. The President frowns on any prompting or rehearsed speeches and will even admonish a teacher who prompts a child.
He loves spontaneity and encourages children to speak their mind. Every speech of the President has reference to the next generation. Children identify with him and when he took oath of office last year, the galleries in Parliament’s Central Hall were filled with children. Kalam had insisted on it This is not to take anything away from Nehru. He was a visionary who envisaged a stronger future for Indian children. It has never been an erosion of respect to become a Dada from a Chacha. If the learnings from "Kyuki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" can captivate a nation, its converse logic should hold good in every Indian's life. Fifty-six years after independence and 36 years after his death , Pandit Nehru's soul would only be too happy to see the same children whom he once patted and hugged, grow up and pass on to their next generations the same love that he had once showered on them. Those children are living that future. And their children are lucky to have yet another visionary in their time to dream for them – President Kalam.
Nehru loved children and spent a lot of time with them too. The image is vivid – a handsome, avuncular man with Gandhi cap and rose in his button smiling down at the tots. But it is an image from another era. Of a chacha to generations that are themselves chachas now.
For today’s children, that is just a textbook image. Sepia-tinted and too remote to relate to. Nehru does not mean to them what he did to their parents or grandparents. And so Children’s Day on November 14 is actually just a holiday or a day full of fun events at school.
They can’t be blamed. The parents of most five-to-ten-year-olds were not even born when Nehru died. For today’s kids, Nehru has to become a proud Dada Nehru. For there is only one Chacha.