Kids found a ‘grandfather’ in the Prime Minister, says Usha Vance

Washington: US Second Lady Usha Vance has said that this was a time of opportunity in the bilateral relationship with India and spoke effusively of her recent visit to India along with her husband, Vice-President J.D. Vance, and their three children for whom, she added, it was a “mindblowing” experience.

The Second Lady, who participated in a rare public interview at an event hosted by the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum on Monday, spoke feelingly about the bond her three children forged with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a grandfather figure.

“This is a time of great opportunity. And I think if my husband were here, he’d say the same thing,” she said when asked by the interviewer for her personal take on the bilateral relationship.

“Obviously, the US and India, their relationship has ebbed and flowed at times. There are times when one country’s needs and one country’s goals are different from the other. But right now, I think in the next four years and in the future, the fact that there is this established Indian-American population here and so many people in India who know the country and know the people who are here doing great things, having great opportunities.”

She added: “When we were visiting recently, I was just struck by the number of people who came up to me to say how much they loved our country, how they visited family, how they visited just for pleasure, that they were hoping for a close relationship. Looking forward, and I think these personal ties actually really have something to do with it.”

The Vances were in India in April for the first vice-presidential visit in 13 years, coming after Vice-President Joe Biden’s in 2013, when he was a part of the then President Barack Obama’s administration.

The succeeding two Vice-Presidents — Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, who is also of Indian descent, never got around to make the trip.

“It really was the trip of a lifetime for us, my children had never been to India. What would the pandemic and J.D. century mean to politics and all that, and so they’d grown up just knowing so much about this country, the stories, the food, the relationships with grandparents and friends, but they had never actually seen it. So it was just sort of mindblowing from their perspective. And then for me and J.D., I think it just could not have been any more special,” Usha Vance said.

“We had the opportunity to see some of the greatest sights in north India. We’re looking forward to our next trip and trying to get to the parts of the country where my family is from as well. And it just was sort of one hit after another, right? The most incredible food, the peacocks that we got to see everywhere we went, getting to see the Taj Mahal in the morning and appreciate it as the sun was just sort of coming up, and the cool skies and blue skies over in the background. And of course, as you mentioned, meeting the Prime Minister was really very special.”

The Vances had met the Prime Minister Modi by this time.

Their first meeting was in Paris on the sidelines of an AI summit in February.

“They were sort of sleep deprived in Paris, and they saw an Indian man with a white beard and white hair, and they just put him the grandfather category immediately. So they are very into him. They just love him. And he really cemented his status by giving our five-year-old a birthday present that day. So when we were able to visit his home, they just sort of ran up. They were hugging him. He was just incredibly kind and generous to them.”

IANS