Consul General Lakhan Mehrotra

Consul General Lakhan Mehrotra of the Consulate General of India in San Francisco, a man of illumining vision and a rising sun of Tomorrow’s Dawn, speaks most soulfully of U Thant’s spiritual presence with these significant words: “It was a matter of the greatest privilege for me to have met Mr U Thant, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in 1963 and 1964 when I was myself posted in New York at the Consulate General of India. I was deeply impressed by the spiritual glow which seemed to emanate from the personality of the Secretary-General. I had known him for several years as a devout Buddhist and as one who carried something of the Buddha in him in terms of sympathy for the suffering humanity. But one had to see him to believe what was preserved of the spiritual strength he carried within himself. His passing has been a great loss, particularly to us in Asia who had known him as one sincerely anxious for the liberation of regimes under colonial rule. It was only right and proper that among the many distinctions with which Mr U Thant was honoured, he should have received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.”