What a marvellous orator Swami Vivekananda was! When he spoke amidst a huge audience, he had the power to inspire each and everyone in the crowd.

On his journey from Colombo to Kolkata, and then from there to Almora, he had delivered electrifying lectures at various places, stirring the Indian masses from their age-long siesta. These made the people aware of the greatness of their own culture and glorious heritage, and the distinctive role they ought to play as far as the world peace and amity was concerned by the diffusion of spiritual ideas. In this book the reader can get a glimpse of what India stands for and where its true strength lies. The book is a collection of thirty intriguing and inspiring lectures.

I was deeply inclined to read about his journey. In January 1897, Vivekananda reached Colombo, a part of the then British Ceylon where he stayed for four days. During one of his lectures, the opening words “The time is short and the subject is vast” had deep impact on the young minds. Five months later in June, he reached Almora after extensively travelling through the north Indian states.

Sister Nivedita very aptly said, ‘...Had he not lived, texts that today will carry the bread of life to thousands might have remained the obscure disputes of scholars. He taught with authority, and not as one of the pandits. For he himself had plunged to the depths of the realisation which he preached.’