Washington, April 3 (Inditop.com) For US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner his trip to India next week is like homecoming in a sense. For it was here that he had his early schooling and learnt to play cricket and baseball.
“It was a great gift to me and a great gift to any American to be exposed to India at an early age,” he said recalling his stay in Friends colony in New Delhi between 1968 and 1973 when his father was the Deputy Resident Representative for the Ford Foundation in India.
“To learn to see as much as you can see as a foreigner in India how much of India lives to see not just extreme poverty, but a country with India’s great open dynamic tradition, is a great gift for an American,” Geithner said talking to select Indian media ahead of the visit.
“To watch and see how the impact America had on the world, for good and sometimes not so good, is a great gift to have as a young kid,” he said speaking of his time in school from second to sixth grade. “I was lucky, I learned not just to play cricket, but I learned to play baseball.”
“No, I cannot play cricket with any talent but I can play both,” he said when a game of cricket was suggested.
“I grew up with my parents, friends who were people involved in development at a time when it was a great era of optimism and development,” said Geithner who travelled a lot in India.
“It was a time of really great durable achievements in the broader development area. So it was a nice thing to be exposed to early in life.”
rounak