New Delhi, Mar 16: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a special podcast with Lex Fridman, shared multiple anecdotes from his humble childhood and also shared a riveting tale about his canvas shoes.

In more than three-hour long podcast with Lex Fridman, PM Modi also explained how the poverty and deprivation in early years was never a hardship for him, but rather served as a catalyst to overcome challenges.

Reflecting on his childhood, PM Modi shared that he grew up in a humble background but never felt its weight. He stated that even amid hardships, he never experienced a sense of deprivation.

“The place we lived was likely even smaller than where we are sitting now. There was no window, just a small door. That’s where I was born. That’s where I grew up. Now, when people talk about poverty, it’s natural to discuss it in the context of public life, and by those standards, my early life was spent in extreme poverty, but we never really felt the burden of poverty,” he told Fridman.

PM Modi also reminisced about an incident when his uncle once gifted him white canvas shoes and how he used discarded chalk from school to keep it look ‘polished’.

“One day, while I was on my way to school, I ran into my uncle on the way he saw me and was surprised. He asked me, “You go to school like this, without shoes?” At that time, he bought me a pair of canvas shoes and made me wear them. Back then, they must have cost around 10 or 12 rupees,” PM Modi said.

Further sharing his childish attempts to whiten his shoes, PM Modi elaborated, “But here’s the thing. They were white canvas shoes, and they would quickly get stained. So what did I do? 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.

PM Modi emphasised that he embraced every phase of life with gratitude and never viewed poverty as a struggle.

Ahead of the podcast release this evening, US-based podcaster and AI researcher Lex Fridman described his conversation with PM Modi as “one of the most powerful conversations” of his life.

--IANS

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