NEW DELHI, Nov. 14

IT was a sight that would have warmed the cudgels of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Throwing security to the wind, President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, stepped down from the podium and walked around the main hall of Vigyan Bhawan mingling freely with close to a 1,000 children and answering questions which were being thrown at him thick and fast.

The setting of the event could not have been more apt — the President mingling with children on the birthday of the person who children around the country refer to as Chacha Nehru.

The questions asked of him were of all kinds — a youngster sought guidance to become a music director, another wanted to know whether he could serve the country by joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), yet another asked the President his vision for the development of the country by the year 2020.

Not only did the President take the trouble of answering each query, but he also repeated each question so that the entire sea of children in the far corner of the huge hall could hear the words loud and clear.

The President sharing a moment with music director A.R. Rahman, who composed music to a poem written by Dr Kalam, which was rendered by school children at the function.

To the young man seeking guidance on becoming a music director, the President's advice was simple "Music director A.R. Rahman is also here, you should seek guidance from him. But remember, you need to work hard in whatever you decide to do".

The excitement of the occasion and the enthusiasm about an interaction with the first citizen got the better of the young ones. Throwing classroom decorum by the wayside, questions came from all corners at one go, this despite repeated requests from the podium and the teachers for orderly behaviour. In the bedlam neither the questions nor the answers could be heard clearly.

But on a special day like this one would expect kids to be kids and that is just what they were. Before the official function began, the children who had arrived from almost every nook and cranny of the country, were busy trying to take up vantage positions so that they could be seen live on television screens.

The star stuck child audience also went beserk at the sight of A.R. Rahman entering the hall. Children ran, autograph books in hand, to the `star'. It was then the turn of the organisers to form a human shield around the music director very much in the same way that Prime Ministers and Presidents are protected.

Appeals from the children that this was unfair and that the elders should remember that it was "their day" fell on deaf ears. Yes, it was a special day for them — what with getting to see the President and A.R. Rahman at the same event. And for the close to 1,000 children it was going to be an outing that they were unlikely to forget in a hurry.