The Hindu Business Line : A people's President

IN THE death of K. R. Narayanan, India stands impoverished of an illustrious son who was gentle and genial to a fault even as his depth of knowledge on men and matters dazzled all those fortunate enough to have come into contact with him.

As eminent peers of KRN — as he was fondly and popularly called — began pouring out their grief by stating how in his death the nation has lost a human being par excellence, this correspondent remembers a pleasant experience with the distinguished citizen.

In September 1983 as a news agency correspondent I was nominated to accompany KRN, then Vice-President, on a week-long visit to Vietnam, a country where he had been a diplomat before the Vietnam war in the early 1960s. For Mr Narayanan, the visit to Vietnam was a sort of a voyage of reminiscences to his early days in the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). He was naturally looking forward to confirming his robust perception about the indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese, who had lost heavily in terms of men and material in the Vietnam war.

The seven-day visit of the Vice-President took the entourage to Hanoi, the port city of Da Nang, and the picturesque tourist spot of Hue, with a stopover at the scenic Thai Van Pass and Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

As the media team accompanying him was quite small, Mr Narayanan could remember each one us by name. But what left me most impressed was his warmth and affection. For instance, at the Thai Van Pass — from where one can see the panoramic profile of the South China Sea crashing into the mountains — we journalists stood a couple of cars behind as the Vice-President and his wife were viewing the breath-taking spectacle. Suddenly, Mr Narayanan beckoned me to join him in front for a better view.

But even as I moved forward, his security detail stopped me but only till a glance from Mr Narayanan. No sooner did I reach the elevated spot where he was standing than he put his arm on my shoulder to explain the significance of this spot just as a teacher might to a pupil. The simple gesture spoke of a person who had not let his position suppress, if not rob, his human side.

On a subsequent request to know more about his views on things that had shaped his thinking and life, he sent me an autographed work of his Images and Insights, a memoir worth cherishing.

At one of the receptions hosted by the Indian community in Vietnam, Mr Narayanan urged them to study Vietnam closely and try to imbue their work ethos, sense of culture and aesthetics. He lauded Vietnamese as hard-working, highly motivated and humble people who had emerged from virtual ruin with little external assistance.

Mr Narayanan displayed keen interest and admiration for the great leader and liberator Ho Chi Minh when he visited the latter's mausoleum. He was particularly touched when his photograph with the Vietnamese leader along with his wife and daughter was presented to him by the host. With unconcealed joy, Mr Narayanan took the picture and reminisced how he had used that photograph back home in his election campaign.

As we returned to India, Mr Narayanan was asked about his impressions of the visit. He said that despite the passage of three decades since his Vietnam stint of duty, "the continuity has not slipped and the dynamism and humility of the Vietnamese" were what contributed to their remarkable success in reconstruction. These, perhaps, are the traits that distinguished Mr Narayanan as a statesman among politicians and virtually a people's President over his chequered public career.

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