Jhulasan (Gujarat), Sep 21 (IANS) Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams got a joyous and roaring welcome at her ancestral home in Gujarat’s Jhulasan village Friday as crowds jostled to have a glimpse of the space hero.
People were visibly overjoyed as Williams smiled and kept waving to them. She could not visit Jhulasan, about 50 km from Ahmedabad, the last time she came to Gujarat in 1998.
Jhulasan is in Mehsana district, on the Ahmedabad-Delhi highway.
Dressed in a purple khadi kurta, bought specially for the occasion, the astronaut and her family members, including father D.K Pandya, drove straight to the village temple.
While she offered prayers, security personnel had a tough time controlling the mass of people who had gathered there since morning just to see her.
Sprightly village girls dressed in colourful costumes presented folk dances, including the traditional garba, on a stage decorated with flowers and festoons.
The girls said Williams had made the village proud and that they were elated having her in their midst.
Many of them said that they considered Williams, who created a new record for a woman astronaut with her 195-day space odyssey this year, their role model.
And there was more jubilation as news spread that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had talked to Williams over telephone and invited her to New Delhi.
Williams arrived in Ahmedabad Thursday. On Sep 24, she will go to Hyderabad to attend the 58th International Astronautical Congress where she will interact with Indian scientists and share her experience of living in space.