End of the year 2020 I was fortunate to launch my book Letters to Mother published by Harepr Collins at the hands of honourable Governor, Shri Bhagat Singh Koshiyari.
For many of the p guests present in the auditorium, it was a first time at the Raj Bhavan. For me it is a special moment because it was here, in the winter of 2018 that I met Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and confirmed the idea oftranslating his Gujarati book. The Prime Minister surprisingly had only one question, ‘Why this book?’ to which my answer was ‘Because it is emotional, unusually structured and connects with the mother Goddess. He smiled and elaborated on how the book was conceived.
In the 80s when Narendra Modi was just an ordinary party worker, feeling weighed down with the daily pressures, he got into the habit of writing a diary wherein he shared his innermost thoughts and feelings communicated with the mother Goddess whom he addressed as Jagat Janani. Every few months however, he would systematically tear up the pages and light a bon fire and he did this time and again for years.
One day, while he was in the process, a friend visited Modi and was surprised by what he witnessed. He snatched the remaining diary from his friend’s hand and admonished him for not revering his creativity. When he went home, the friend carried the remaining diary with him because he feared that Modi would destroy them at the first opportunity available. Somehow, the story of the surviving diary of 1986 reached Image Publishers, pioneer in printing business and the publisher persuaded Shri Modi to let them publish his writings into a book.
To be continued