US President Barack Obama's love for Jhumpa Lahiri highlights desi success

WASHINGTON: "They also write," could well be the modest White House footnote to the sparkling chronicles of IndianAmerican success in the US. After the familiar goldrush of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) awards that America's most successful immigrant community wins every year, President Obama on Friday honoured Jhumpa Lahiri with the National Humanities Medal for her works of fiction at an elegant White House event.

Obama's summer reading during his Martha's Vineyard vacation in August included Lahiri's 'The Lowland', quite likely as a consequence of her being penciled for the award. Earlier in 2010, he had appointed her as a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

The warmth they shared was evident as the President whispered something into her ears as she stepped up to receive the medal, and they air-kissed on the cheeks.

Later, the President made his affection public for an awardee, who, seated next to Michelle Obama, was conspicuously among the youngest in a dis tinguished gathering of American eminence grises.

Obama dropped by at postparty reception and called out, "Where is Jhumpa?" according to those present. When told she had just stepped out, he grinned and said, "Tell her I lo ve her!" Lahiri, 42, who was born in London as Nilanjana Sudeshna to Bengali immi grants, appears to be a favorite among Democrats. Hillary Clinton too spoke of having re ad `Interpreter of Maladies' and `The Namesake', her two earlier books, boasting of the author being her constituent.

The White House citation praised her for "for enlarging the human story ," saying "in her works of fiction, Dr Lahiri has illuminated the Indian American experience in beautifully wrought narratives of estrangement and belonging." Lahiri herself told the paper that the President may relate to his own conflicting paths as the son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas when reading `The Lowland'.

"He has a sort of double vision of America as I do, as many people do, many people who have been both brought up and bred within America but also have a different perspective of the country," she said. "In a sense, part of him comes from outside America and he embodies both that contradiction and that richness."