Kids put PM Modi in grandfather category: Usha Vance recalls India trip

Terming the meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi very special and calling her recent visit to India a 'trip of her lifetime', US Second Lady Usha Vance said that her children love PM Modi

For US Second Lady Usha Vance, her April visit to India with US Vice President JD Vance and their children was a “trip of a lifetime”. Recalling her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Usha Vance said on Monday (local time) that it was “very special” and that her children adore him. Because of PM Modi’s white beard and hair, the kids “just put him in the grandfather category immediately,” she said. The US Second Lady made these remarks at the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) in Washington.

 

 

Earlier, the Vance family and PM Modi had met in France in February during the AI Action Summit, which Usha Vance said was very special. “We’d had a chance to meet him before. And it’s funny, my kids saw him. 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 in the grandfather category immediately. 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.”

 

 

She said, when the Vance family met PM Modi in India, her kids ran up to him and hugged him. He was just incredibly kind and generous to them, she noted.

 

The US Second Lady also recalled husband JD Vance’s meeting with PM Modi during their visit, adding that the meeting was a real opportunity for them to “cement the personal relationship”.

 

 

Usha Vance recalled what the experience of visiting India was like for her children, who were visiting the country for the first time. Vance said the children had never been to India before because of the pandemic and her husband’s political schedules, but they have grown up knowing so much about the country, the stories, the food, the relationships with grandparents and friends. But they had never actually seen it. “So it was sort of mind-blowing from their perspective,” she said. 

 

She also shared her experience of visiting places in North India, including the Taj Mahal. The Vance family was on a four-day trip to India in April, which marked JD Vance's first official visit to the country after he took office as the Vice President.

 

[With agency inputs]