Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), with her husband Douglas Emhoff at her side, greets audience members during a campaign stop at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire, U.S., April 23, 2019.
Chennai, India - Harris was born to an Indian mother and her relatives and compatriots are overflowing with pride about her success.
Published: Wed 12 Aug 2020, 10:33 PM
Updated: Mon 24 Aug 2020, 10:38 AM
On annual trips to India as a child, Kamala Harris would go for strolls on the humid beaches of Chennai with her maternal grandfather and his friends, listening intently as they chatted about democracy and the need to treat everyone equally.
Harris, born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who both immigrated to the United States to study, made history on Tuesday when US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden picked her as his vice-president.
In a speech in 2018, Senator Harris recalled those early visits to her grandparents in the upscale neighbourhood of Besant Nagar, along the shores of the Bay of Bengal in southern India.
Also read: Padma Lakshmi, Mindy Kaling and other Indian origin celebrities hail Kamala Harris
"I was not conscious of it at the time, but it was those walks on the beach with my grandfather in Besant Nagar that had a profound impact on who I am today," Harris, now 55, said in New York.
Her grandfather, who was among millions of people who joined India's independence movement, later became a high-ranking government official.
On Wednesday, reporters and camera crew from local and national news channels crowded into the quiet, tree-lined street where Harris had spent time with her mother's family.
A post box with her aunt's name embossed on it was the last remaining link to Harris's family in Chennai, after the aunt sold her ground-floor apartment.
The aunt, gynaecologist Sarala Gopalan, told CNN-News18 that she had been up since 4 a.m. local time, after hearing that Biden had picked her niece as his vice-president.
"She is very caring and kind to people, and that's what I like about her the most," Gopalan said. "If I send her a message right now saying Kamala I need you, the next day she will be here."
Her uncle Gopalan Balachandran told Reuters partner ANI about her love for both South Indian and American food. Her taste in music also points to her diverse upbringing, he said.
"She likes India, she likes Indian music, but she likes jazz music also."
Harris trended on Twitter in India as business leaders and politicians praised her.
"First Indian and Asian woman to get the nomination as official VP candidate. Thumbs up," Ram Madhav, a senior official of India's ruling party, wrote on Twitter.
On social media, users joked about how hyper-competitive Indian parents in the United States will now push their kids to aim even higher.
"The bar for 'desi' achievement has suddenly been raised!," Indian opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor said, using a Hindi word to describe Indians.
"Beta (son) what are you doing these days? Oh, just a Harvard professor? Not even a mayor yet?"
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam on Wednesday termed the nomination of US Senator Kamala Harris as the Democrats' Vice Presidential candidate for the upcoming US poll as a moment of pride for Indians.
Panneerselvam tweeted: "It is a moment of pride for Indians and Tamil Nadu especially, as Kamala Harris, the first Indian senator, whose mother hails from Tamil Nadu has been nominated as the Vice Presidential candidate by the US Democratic party. My hearty wishes to her."
DMK MP Kanimozhi in a tweet said: "It's really a matter of pride that Democratic Presidential nominee @JoeBiden has chosen US politician of Indian Tamil origin Kamala Harris as his VP running mate for the US Presidential elections. I wish Kamala Harris the best in the US elections. Good to see the inclusiveness."
Kamala Harris, whose mother tongue is Tamil, is the first Indian-American to be the Vice Presidential choice in a US Presidential election.
Her mother Shyamala Gopalan had gone to the US to study medicine and became a cancer researcher.
She later married Donald Harris, a Jamaican economist. The couple had two daughters - Kamala and Maya - but subsequently divorced.
Though born and raised in the US, a young Kamala often visited her maternal grandparents in Chennai's Besant Nagar locality, and had strolled on the Elliots Beach here along with her grandfather P.V. Gopalan, a retired civil servant.
"You can't know who @KamalaHarris is without knowing who our mother was. Missing her terribly, but know she and the ancestors are smiling today," Maya Harris tweeted after her sister was selected.
Shyamala Gopalan's sister Sarala Gopalan and brother G. Balachandran are still in India.
Gopalan Balachandran, maternal uncle of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris' (D-CA) reads a book outside his house in New Delhi, India, August 12, 2020.
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