By IANS
Chennai : Sailors and airmen of the USS Nimitz, berthed in Chennai's outer harbour, began their US Independence Day celebration on India's east coast with visits to local institutions and offering community services.
They visited a tsunami-rehabilitated village in Kanathur, about 23 km south of the city. The sailors visited a temple and donated games and school supplies for students in another village.
Girls of the Anjuman-E-Himayath-E-Islam, a secondary school, taught the women crew members of Nimitz how to apply henna on their hands.
In another institution, the American visitors were taught how to tie a sari.
The sailors painted a nursery with pictures of animals and played base-ball with the boys. They also painted a children's dormitory at an NGO called Community Health Education Society.
Children staged cultural shows for the sailors.
Some sailors cleaned up a garden at St. George's Cathedral, built in 1815.
Nimitz crew members also visited an old educational institution, the Madras-i-Azam school.
After the sailors' day out began the USA's birthday party and two special guests, superstars Rajnikant and Kamal Haasan, have been invited abroad the USS Nimitz.
Some stars in the music industry and noted dancers too have been invited to participate in the July 4 celebrations.
As bad weather and rough seas have played spoilsport Sunday and Monday, most of the celebrations with Indian visitors have taken place on the non-nuclear destroyer, USS Pinckney, which is accompanying Nimitz and is docked in the Chennai port itself.
Meanwhile, security around the Nimitz has been increased.
Three fishermen intruded into the sanitised zone around the nuclear-powered warship earlier in the day, as their nets had got entangled in one of the smaller vessels guarding the outer perimeter of the ship's security zone.
They have been arrested and the Indian authorities are questioning the men.