There are a thousand suns beyond the clouds: Lapierre

BASANTI, Feb 24: Eminent author and altruist Dominique Lapierre has said that the murder of Christian missionary Graham Staines and his s...

BASANTI, Feb 24: Eminent author and altruist Dominique Lapierre has said that the murder of Christian missionary Graham Staines and his sons in Orissa and other cases of attacks on Christians in India are but scattered incidents and they do not tarnish the overall image of the country.

Speaking on the eve of the world premiere of his book A Thousand Suns here, Lapierre, a Roman Catholic, said there are fundamentalists everywhere in the world and his own nation France was no exception. “There are zealots in my country also and I don’t think that recent incidents of attacks on Christians affect the image of India at all where I have been coming for the past 50 years and never faced any kind of hostility,” he said.

“India is the biggest democracy and most fascinating country and hence there cannot be a better place to launch my book,” the author of City of Joy said, choosing to release the book some 50 km from Calcutta here on the banks of a south Bengal river, in an unusual setting. The royalty of the book will be donated by Lapierre to Southern Health Improvement Society (SHIS), an NGO funded by the author to reach medical facilities to the “poorest of the poor” of inaccessible Sundarbans Islands and other South 24 Parganas areas.

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Published by Full Circle Publishing LTD, A Thousand Suns is a non-fiction which traces the growth of Lapierre from a detached journalist to a participant in the great human dramas he was privileged to behold.

Lapierre recaptures his personal involvement with different kinds of heroes in A Thousand Suns, ranging from Japanese terrorists to freedom fighters in fascist Portugal, from the spread of Nazism to the liberation of Paris and of course from Gandhiji to Mother Teresa.

“My heroes in the book are not always celebrities. One of my heroes in the book is the small girl called Padmini who supports her family by gleaning charcoal in Calcutta every morning. She touched my life,” he said.

Commenting on the title of the book, Lapierre said it was inspired by a South Indian proverb “There are always a thousand suns beyond the clouds” which he had seen on the shutter of a bus years ago in India on an inclement day. The book, Lapierre said, has been titled so as to convey the message that there is always hope beyond adversities.

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Lapierre said India always inspires him to write more about it and like Freedom at Midnight and City of Joy, much of his latest book comprise Indian characters, events and personalities. “I have spent the best part of my years in this country while doing groundwork for the two books and I come here again and again to take my annual dose of vitamin.”

“I am happy that I can do something for the people of this region through Southern Health Improvement Society. Today I am glad to say that the boat dispensaries that I had given them treated over 30,000 patients in the past year and operated upon about 1,000 people, including victims of tiger and crocodile bite in the Sundarbans,” he said.