Thulasendrapuram, Tamil Nadu: At a time when many people are rooting for Joe Biden to win the US presidential election, an entire village called Thulasendrapuram in the far end of the Thiruvarur district in Tamil Nadu, is pinning their hopes on their very “own girl” Kamala Harris to become the Vice President of the United States.
Though born in Oakland, California, Kamala Harris never shied away from her Tamil Nadu connection. Her maternal grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, who was born in the Thulasendrapuram village, joined the Indian Foreign Service and travelled abroad before retiring as a senior government officer in Chennai. Harris, born to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, never missed an opportunity to share her fond memories of her time at Chennai, where her grandfather lived.
Though the Harris family moved away from the Thulasendrapuram village, her family maintains its relationship with the village and its people, as a testimony of which her name is etched on a temple wall along with others who made contributions for the construction of the temple.
The people of Thulasendrapuram are holding special prayers for a Biden-Harris victory and are glued to their television sets to track the American elections. The villagers are hoping that the Biden-Harris victory in the US presidential elections will bring pride not only to the village but for every single person there. Special pujas are being organised daily in the Dharma Sastha temple and hoardings are erected in a way which would direct anyone to the village without any trouble in finding directions.
For Kamala Harris, her Tamil Nadu connection just does not end with her memories about the long walks on the Chennai beach, it is also about the food she loves the most. Very recently, during a social media interaction, when asked about her favourite Indian food, she replied in a flash, saying, “So South Indian, it would be idli with…a really good sambar and then North Indian, probably any kind of tikka”.