New Delhi: Recalling his early life spent in extreme poverty, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he picked up life’s lessons at his father’s tea shop and from his mother who treated children with home remedies, imbibing in him the spirit of service at a young age.
In a podcast with Lex Fridman, Modi shared about his childhood spent in a small home with no windows where his parents, siblings, uncles, aunts and grandparents lived.
“My early life was spent in extreme poverty, but we never really felt the burden of poverty,” he said, reminiscing how his father worked tirelessly, late into the night and his mother ensured that the children never felt the struggles of the circumstances.
“But despite everything, these challenging circumstances of living in scarcity never left a mark on our minds,” the prime minister said.
Modi said he was not aware when, but the habit of dressing neatly has been there since childhood and cited the example of his white canvas shoes, as a schoolgoing child, to illustrate the point.
The prime minister recalled that his uncle got him a pair of white canvas shoes after finding that he went to school barefoot.
Having received the shoes, Modi’s next worry was how to keep them clean.
“In the evening, after school was over, I would stay back for a while. I would go from classroom to classroom, collecting leftover pieces of chalk that the teachers had discarded. I would take the pieces of chalk home, soak them in water, mix them into a paste, and polish my canvas shoes with it, making them bright white again,” he said.
“For me, those shoes were a treasured possession, a symbol of great wealth. And I don’t exactly know why, but from childhood, our mother was extremely particular about cleanliness. Perhaps that’s where we inherited that habit too,” Modi said.
The prime minister said his mother possessed knowledge of traditional remedies and healing practices, and would treat children with these home remedies.
“Every morning before sunrise, around five o’clock, she would start treating them, so all the children and their parents would gather at our home, little children crying, and we had to wake up early because of it,” he recalled.
“This spirit of service, in a way, was nurtured through these experiences. A sense of empathy for society, the desire to do good for others, these values were instilled in me from my family. I believe that my life has been shaped by my mother, my father, my teachers, and the environment I grew up in,” Modi said.
The prime minister said as a child he would sit at his father’s tea shop and observe how people interacted with each other.
“I observed their ways of speaking, their expressions. These things taught me a lot, even though I wasn’t in a position to apply it then, I thought, ‘If I ever get the chance, why not? Why shouldn’t I present myself well’,” he said.
He shared that during his childhood, he frequently visited a village library, where he read about Swami Vivekananda, whose teachings left a profound impact on his life.
Modi also recalled how he spent time roaming in the Himalayas in his younger days when he met great ascetics, who had renounced everything.
“Perhaps it was my age of curiosity, of wanting to learn, to understand. It was a new experience, a world shaped by the mountains, by ice, by the towering snow-covered peaks. But all of this played a huge role in shaping me. It strengthened me from within and enabled me to discover my inner power,” he said.
“Practising meditation, waking up in the sacred pre-dawn hours, bathing in the cold, serving people with devotion and naturally tending to elderly saints became a seamless part of who I was,” Modi said.
“The Modi, who lovingly helped his mother care for children during their treatments, tending to them with patience and compassion. The Modi who wandered through the Himalayas. And the Modi who now works from this seat of responsibility. They are all tied together by the same inner consistency,” he said.
The prime minister recalled the time he spent at the Ramakrishna Ashram, where he came in contact with saints and received immense love from them.
Modi said he developed a deep bond with Swami Atmasthananda, who became a guiding force in his life. Swami Atmasthananda advised him that his true purpose was to serve people and work for the welfare of society.
Fridman, a US-based computer scientist, started his podcast in 2018 which was originally titled the Artificial Intelligence Podcast but the name changed to Lex Fridman Podcast in 2020.
Guests on his podcast include US President Donald Trump, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, American businessman Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
