WASHINGTON – Former President of the United States Barack Obama He said that he has always had a special place for India because of his childhood years in Indonesia listening epic hindu tales of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
“Perhaps it was its large size (India), with one sixth of the world’s population, approximately two thousand different ethnic groups and more than seven hundred languages spoken,” Obama writes about his fascination with India in his latest book ‘To the Promised Land’ .
Obama says he had never been to India before his 2010 presidential visit, but that the country “always held a special place in my imagination.”
“Maybe it was because I spent a part of my childhood in Indonesia listening to the Hindu epic tales of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or because of my interest in Eastern religions, or because of a group of Pakistani and Indian college friends who taught me how to cook dahl and keema and got me excited about Bollywood movies, “writes Obama.
In “A Promised Land,” Obama recounts his journey from the 2008 election campaign to the end of his first term with the daring Abbottabad (Pakistan) raid that killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
“A Promised Land” is the first of two planned volumes. The first part hit bookstores around the world on Tuesday.
In video: Barack Obama in Memoir: “I spent years of childhood listening to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata”
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