New Delhi: Barack Obama, the former President of United States of America said that he has "always held a special place" for India as he spent his childhood listening to the epic tales of Mahabharata and Ramayana. The former US President listened to these two epic tales when he was in Indonesia.
Obama writes in his newly launched book, 'A Promised Land' that, "Maybe it was its (India's) sheer size, with one-sixth of the world's population, an estimated two thousand distinct ethnic groups, and more than seven hundred languages spoken."
Obama had never visited India before his Presidential visit in 2010. However, he has always held a special place for the country in his imagination.
He held a special place for the country maybe because he spent a part of his childhood in Indonesia listening to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, or because of his interest in Eastern religions, or because a group of his college friends taught him to cook dal and keema and turned his interest into Bollywood movies, wrote Obama.
Obama's book also features Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and former Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The US President-elect, Joe Biden, who was the vice president to Obama during his Presidential tenure, also finds his way into Obama's book. Obama also mentioned about Russian President, Vladimir Putin in his newly launched book.
His new book is planned to have two volumes, one of which is 'A Promised Land.' The first volume has hit the bookstores globally today.