I've just written the life of a 'foot-soldier', who betrayed his country and lived a rootless life. He was officially pardoned by the German Government in 2002.
Sugata was born in 1911 in Germany. His long life has been an odyssey through his own and the last century's dark ages. He railed against his time and place, a protest that culminated in his war-time betrayal of Nazi Germany, when he risked his life and effectively ensured his rootlessness. His search for root as well as freedom took him to the East, first to India and then Nepal where he became a Buddhist monk. Returning to live in his adopted country, Norway, he gave lectures evangelising Buddhism, and at the same time he slowly began the process of unravelling the suffering of his past life, an unravelling that continues to this day.
Alive and kicking at 93, he still travels east, and is fully engaged with this world. I've just come back from India with him (April 2005)
The book is called Bird of Passage, a loose translation of Wanderwogel, a German word for a pilgrim at the time.
The story of the book, Bird of Passage, and pictures are up on
www.sugata.info
Rachel Kellett
Suffolk, UK, May 8th 2005
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