Kalam book release in soup

by NewsGram Staff writer

Thrissur: Late President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is facing continuous controversies after his death. The first controversy was regarding the renaming of Aurangzeb road in New Delhi to Abdul Kalam road and second was for his twitter handle. And, now another controversy has come up regarding the release of the translation of his last book which got cancelled because of protests at Thrissur on Saturday.

After Sreedevi S Kartha, translator of the book, was not given the permission to share the dais allegedly at behest of Swamy Brahmavihari Das who was chief guest, various organizations staged protests at the Kerala Sahitya Akademi. But, he did not attend the function because of the controversy.

Sreedevi said that publishers asked her to stay away from the dais as Brahmavihari Das does not like to share stage with women. But publishers said translators are not usually invited to book release functions.

The original title of the book was "Transcendence: My Spiritual Experience with Pramukh Swamiji". Now, it is translated as "Kaalaatheetham". Brahmavihari Das is a disciple of Pramukh Swami, whom Kalam used to consider his Guru.

Malayala Manorama says, Kalam's co-author Arun Tiwari and eminent Malayalam writer MT Vasudevan Nair were supposed to release the book.

(With inputs from IBN)