Long before he became a famous author and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Eli Wiesel (holocaust survivor) worked as a journalist and persuaded his paper to buy some articles from him reporting on India. Traveling on a tiny budget he explored the country writing in his book Memoirs: "I had long dreamed of visiting India, drawn to it by a desire to meet not maharajahs but sages, yogis and ascetics." Here are three of his experiences and insights from India.
#1. He traveled nearly broke. "Travel expenses were a problem," he honestly says explaining that his paper agreed to buy ten feature stories from him and, if they had reader interest, would purchase an additional ten. Desperate for income, he bought a lottery ticket for the first time in his life and "miracle of miracles, I won a modest amount" which covered some of his India travel expenses.
#2. He learned that there is no antisemitism in India. "I have often heard Jews in Bombay and elsewhere assert that there has never been antisemitism in India. It is a country of spiritual defiance and conquest, a land of infinite probabilities," he wrote. From the 4th to the 14th centuries Judaism flourished in southern India without one single incident of persecution or discrimination, something never experienced in Christian Europe.
#3. He had an amazing astrological reading done. One day a sage trained in Vedic astrology approach Wiesel offering to give him a reading with guidance for his future. Wiesel said he was more interested in hearing what the sage could tell him about his past so the sage asked Wiesel to write down his date of birth and one other date on a piece of paper. Taking the note, the sage turned his back, did some calculations then turned to face Wiesel with a look of terror on his face. "I see bodies, many bodies," he told Wiesel. That was based on a date Wiesel wrote on the note, the date of his liberation from a German concentration camp: April 11, 1945.
#1. He traveled nearly broke. "Travel expenses were a problem," he honestly says explaining that his paper agreed to buy ten feature stories from him and, if they had reader interest, would purchase an additional ten. Desperate for income, he bought a lottery ticket for the first time in his life and "miracle of miracles, I won a modest amount" which covered some of his India travel expenses.
#2. He learned that there is no antisemitism in India. "I have often heard Jews in Bombay and elsewhere assert that there has never been antisemitism in India. It is a country of spiritual defiance and conquest, a land of infinite probabilities," he wrote. From the 4th to the 14th centuries Judaism flourished in southern India without one single incident of persecution or discrimination, something never experienced in Christian Europe.
#3. He had an amazing astrological reading done. One day a sage trained in Vedic astrology approach Wiesel offering to give him a reading with guidance for his future. Wiesel said he was more interested in hearing what the sage could tell him about his past so the sage asked Wiesel to write down his date of birth and one other date on a piece of paper. Taking the note, the sage turned his back, did some calculations then turned to face Wiesel with a look of terror on his face. "I see bodies, many bodies," he told Wiesel. That was based on a date Wiesel wrote on the note, the date of his liberation from a German concentration camp: April 11, 1945.
RSS Feed