The newly built ceremonial hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan became the venue for the state banquet for President Barrack Obama on Sunday evening. More than 250 guests cutting across political parties and various walks of life attended the biggest ever banquet at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Obama paid glowing tributes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, mentioning now he had battled poverty and crocodiles in the course of his struggles in life. He compared his own journey to that of Modi, saying that if his story was possible only in America, Modi’s was possible only in India, before raising a toast to Indo-US ties. In his speech, President Mukherjee traced the genesis of the Indo-US strategic partnership to the similarities between the two nations. “This natural sense of kinship stems from the foundational values that both our people cherish deeply — the values of individual liberty and freedom, democracy, diversity and justice. These core values not only determine how we live and how we are governed as a nation; they also define our aspirations for the future, and the vision of the world we want to bequeath to our children and grandchildren,” Mukherjee said. In the morning, during the ceremonial reception, the US President greeted leaders and ministers with a traditional “namaste” before thanking them for what he described as “extraordinary hospitality”. US First Lady Michelle Obama was gifted a Pashmina shawl by India’s First Lady Suvra Mukherjee. The President himself gifted Michelle a specially-designed tea set with murals of the Rashtrapati Bhavan by the famous Lucknow painter Sukumar Bose whose murals adorn the state corridor of the presidential residence. The date of the gift is inscribed on the set. President Obama received a painting by Rajasthan miniature artist Jay Kumar. The President also gave books on the majestic building to Obama, which were commissioned since the beginning of Mukherjee’s presidency in 2012, and chronicle various aspects of life inside the President’s estate. The evening banquet saw the who’s who of politics and business congregate in the ceremonial hall. Among them were industrialists Mukesh and Anil Ambani, and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, cardiac surgeon Dr Naresh Trehan, banker Chanda Kochhar, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, classical musician Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Sonia shared the high table with the two Presidents, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the First Ladies of India and the United States. Five dance legends — Madhavi Mudgal (Odissi), Prerna Shrimali (Kathak), Geeta Chandran (Bharatnatyam), Rajendra Pillai (Kathakali) and Charu Sija Mathur (Manipuri) — and a troupe of 30 dancers gave a 25-minute performance at the Rashtrapati Bhavan auditorium.
