Speaking my mother tongue
When I was leaving the stadium, the editor of a Bengali sports magazine said to me, “Sri Chinmoy, are you Bengali?” My surname is Ghose, so he knew I was Bengali.I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Can you speak Bengali?”
So I started speaking to him in Bengali. He said, “But can you read Bengali?” Since the announcer said I was from the United States, he thought that I didn’t really know Bengali.
“Yes,” I said. “Certainly I can read Bengali.”
To have me prove I could read Bengali, he gave me his magazine. So I started reading out a little. Then he said, “I wish to give this magazine to you. Please write a few words to me from America.”
It was such a thick magazine, with many pictures. I only kept the cover and his address. It was too heavy to carry back to New York.
— 31 March 1983
Sri Chinmoy, The world-experience-tree-climber, part 2, Agni Press, 1993
