I think we need to bask in reflected glory. The first state dinner hosted by the Obamas was to the Prime Minister of India and his wife last Tuesday. The camera shots we saw on TV and the pictures in Thursday’s The Island with a long article on 60 years of US meals for India and of course Google pictures were exciting. Dignity, charm, friendliness, sensibility were words that came to mind when seeing the picture of the so tall Michelle Obama bending her head to speak with comparatively diminutive Gursharan Kaur, and Obama inclining himself to straight standing Manmohan Singh. Pride because the first really official visitors to a meal in the Obama White House was an Indian and his wife. Many of the guests too were Indian. Sensibility I discerned was because while we are America and the west bashing on conspiracy theories (a tiny ant against a huge elephant) India is forging forward in her good dpl relations.

One is ever curious about social events of this order ‘Washington’s hottest social event’;‘a diplomatic event’ which Michelle Obama dubbed ‘a really neat dinner’ with glamour a-plenty.

The dinner

The food was vegetarian in deference to the guest of honour. Now that is saying something since one can always include meat dishes with vegetarian. But no, the Obamas insisted on a totally vegetarian meal with many of the items/accompaniments coming from the White House garden that the First Lady took leadership in planting. The menu, prepared by guest chef Marcus Samuelsson, a restaurateur in New York, American citizen born in Ethiopia and reared in Sweden, included a mix of Indian and American favorites, including some African-American standards. I dare include the menu here since it is interesting. Potato and eggplant salad to start with, followed by red lentil soup with fresh cheese, then an entrée choice of roast potato dumplings with tomato chutney, chickpeas and okra, caramelized salsify, smoked collard greens, and coconut basmati, also naan and cornbread. Dessert was pumpkin pie, whipped cream and caramel sauce, as well as a selection of smaller treats, including cashew brittle and pecan pralines.

320 guests were present in the chandelier-filled party tent on the White House lawn, an outdoors dinner - a rarity, probably the first time ever. Democrats mingled with well-known Republicans and prominent Indian-Americans. Present were the film directors Steven Spielberg and M. Night Shyamalan; the Pulitzer Prize winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo, Deepak Chopra, healer and writer, among very many others. "He wants to set a tone that’s different," Vishakha N. Desai, Indian-born president of the Asia Society, said. "Obama’s celebrating not just his African-American heritage, but the cultural diversity of America. And that’s a powerful message to send to the world."

Music composed by A R Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire’s Oscar winning music director was played by the National Symphony Orchestra. There were jazz musicians from Chicago and singers from all over.

Michelle Obama is reported by all who wrote on the dinner to have looked really stunning in her shoulder bare glamorous gown, raved over by fashion critics. The champagne hued, silk chiffon was embroidered all over in a flower design with sterling silver piets or sequins. The material was specially woven in India and took three weeks with 40 people working on it. The designer was Naeem Khan, an Indian-American. One article I read described Michelle in her "shimmering strapless gold gown, very like an Oscar statuette."

"It was the evening’s honoree, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrived in the most fashion-forward garb, wearing a lovely periwinkle turban very much like the ones Christian Lacroix showed for his Fall 2009 collection. Singh and the president cut chic figures side-by-side on stage, when they kicked off the evening with a toast ‘to the future that beckons all of us.’"

Mr. Obama greeted his guests in Hindi and hailed the contributions of Mohandas K.Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., saying that such "giants" are "the reason why both of us can stand here tonight." Mr. Singh responded, "Your journey to the White House has captured the imaginations of millions and millions of Indians."

The Guests of Honour

Everyone knows almost everything there is to know about Barack and Michelle Obama but apart from the fact Manmohan Singh was Minister of Finance in Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s Cabinet and brought in sweeping economic reforms in 1991, nothing much else is known. The Singh family keeps a low profile.

Born on 14 September 1932 to a not rich Sikh family in Gah in the Punjab which is now part of Pakistan, Manmohan lost his mother when he was very young and was brought up by his paternal grandmother with whom he bonded strongly. He studied diligently (earlier by lamplight) and graduated from The Punjab University in Chandigarh. He obtained higher degrees and a doctorate from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and was honoured with further doctorates from both these universities and from the University of Alberta. After serving the country as Head of the Reserve Bank of India he entered the Rajya Sabha representing Assam. He is the only prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to serve a consecutive second term as PM. He has undergone multiple cardiac bypass surgery as recent as January this year. He has been instrumental in rapprochement with Europe and more especially with the US. The Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement which was first considered and negotiated in 2005 was finally signed in October 2008.

Gursharan Kaur married Manmohan Singh in 1958 aged 21, five years younger than her husband. She accompanies her husband on foreign trips but otherwise keeps to the background. She has a university degree and is known in the Sikh community for her kirtan singing. She worked in All India Radio. They have three daughters – Upinder, Daman and Amrit, all out of politics and the limelight. The first two are university lecturers with publications to their names while the youngest is an attorney-at-law.