Indian villagers say prayers for Kamala Harris

ACROSS the United States, there will be no shortage of Democrat voters saying a prayer for Kamala Harris, the party’s nominee for vice president.

But perhaps the most fervent wellwishers are to be found some 8,000 miles from the White House, in the small Indian village of Thulasendrapuram, where Ms Harris’s grandmother was born.

There, nestled among the palm trees and surrounded by endless rice paddies, dozens of residents gathered at the village temple yesterday for a special prayer ceremony to wish Ms Harris and the Democrats success in the US election.

During her election campaign, Ms Harris often spoke fondly of her Indian roots, drawing inspiration and fight from her civil servant grandfather who opposed British colonial rule.

It was Ms Harris’s mother, Shyamala, who emigrated from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Fifties to the US to do a masters in nutrition and endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating she remained in the United States, married a fellow student from Jamaica, and gave birth to Kamala in 1964.

When Ms Harris’s uncle, Dr Gopalan Balachandran, was interviewed by The Sunday Times, he said she was brought up on Sanskrit novels, including the Ramayana, a Hindu religious text.

Ms Harris also visited Chennai – the largest city in Tamil Nadu and her mother’s birthplace – several times and was said to be a big fan of idli and sambar, two staples of south Indian cuisine.

“She [Ms Harris] was quite comfortable [in Chennai]. She didn’t say, what is this heat? She liked South Indian food,” Dr Balachandran told The Straits Times.

After her mother’s death in 2009, Ms Harris returned again to Chennai and submerged her ashes in the Bay of Bengal, in accordance with Hindu tradition.

For people in Thulasendrapuram, Ms Harris’s story represents what is possible for a woman of Indian origin. “She is a daughter of the village’s soil,” Lalitha, a housewife, said. “The position she has attained is unbelievable.”