Richard Rahul Verma, United States Ambassador to India.

More than just a red-letter day, Thursday 21 May 2015 turned out to be a red-white-and-blue-letter day for the Government Girls’ Senior Secondary School near Gurdwara Chhevin Patshahi at Basti Sheikh in Jalandhar, Punjab. For this was the day when the United States’ ambassador to India, Richard Rahul Verma, visited the school where his maternal grandmother, Maya Devi, had taught while he was a small boy. In fact, this was only his second visit since his departure for America in 1974 when he was just five years old.

He had gone on to study engineering and then law at Lehigh and Georgetown Universities in the USA. There, he had married Pinky with whom he had become the proud parent of Dylan, Lucy and Zoe. When he entered government service, his merit was recognised and President Barack Obama nominated him to serve as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in 2009 before being elevated as ambassador to India.

Since assuming office at the US Embassy in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, on 19 December 2014, the 47-year-old was checking out his roots during a two-day spin around Punjab that took in the Amritsar’s Golden Temple and Jalianwallahbagh before moving to his ancestral town.

On his way to the school, Varma first visited his grandmother’s house at Chayam Mohalla opposite Ram Mandir. There, he met the family of Rakesh Gupta whose father had bought the property from Maya Devi for what was then a princely sum of Rs 50,000. Gupta recalls with amazement: “He remembers everything! He informed us that as there was no refrigerator during that time, his family used to buy ice from a nearby shop. He also said that there used to be a swing in the verandah where he used to sit with his mother in evenings. Since it used to be too hot inside, the family used to sleep on charpais on the rooftop. As we kept moving with him in the house, it was like walking in an unknown area.”

Verma also went across to another house in the same narrow lane in which he had played with other children in 1974, and spent about 20 minutes there. After decades, locals got to see their very own “Ruchi” who used to play with them in the congested and narrow lanes of the mohalla. He also went to his relative’s house next door and spent some time chatting in Hindi with Anil Kumar and Premlata, his childhood friends, away from the public glare. He even surprised his family’s old grocer, Siri Ram Chabra (now 82), whose family has been running a shop in the area for the past six decades.

Moving on to the Government Girls School, he was impressed by how well the authorities had maintained records. They even showed Verma his grandmother’s signatures, and also a register according to which she was paid Rs 322.50 a month for teaching social studies in 1967.

Addressing 919 new graduates and post-graduates, he admitted that, like most immigrants, his father had left his wife and children behind when he had gone off to New York in 1963, then borrowed $24 and got a bus ticket to Northern Iowa. “My mother, brothers and sisters came over a few years later,” Verma recalled, adding: “My father has taught us brothers and sisters to be proud of our roots,” telling students that wherever life took them, they “should remain proud of their country.”

Verma’s itinerary in Jallandhar also included the alma mater of his father, Kamal Dev, the DAV College. There, he got emotional when BB Sharma, the principal, invited him to preside over a ceremony as the chief guest. Sharma took the US Ambassador around the heritage building which Kamal Dev had attended some 64 years earlier. Admitted on 19 March 1948, the senior Varma had been at DAV till 1951. A framed copy of the admission form that had been filled in by him was presented to the son in 2015! Sharma told of his surprise when Kamal Dev once walked into his office in 2011.

It was an emotional moment for him to preside over the ceremony as a chief guest at an institution which his father had himself attended as a student 64 years ago. Earlier, he along with college principal BB Sharma also took a round of the old heritage building. After that, Varma went to his father’s old classroom and laid a plaque.

During his two-day Punjab visit as part of the US Embassy’s Outreach Programme, Ambassador Verma also visited the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Punjab Chapter.

At a convocation, he said: “This community is special for me, not only because my dad graduated from here, but also because my grandmother lived here, and my mother went to high school here too. In fact, I lived with my grandmother in the Basti Sheikh neighbourhood in the summer of 1974, of which I still have clear memories – meals cooking on an open fire stove in the kitchen, a giant block of ice delivered in the morning, and gathering on the roof with the neighbours to watch latest Indian movies.

“My mother was born in what today is Pakistan. She settled near here shortly after the Partition. My father was the only person in his family to attend college. Nevertheless, my mother, a young girl then from a village in Pakistan, would go on to get a degree in social work and be trained at Gandiji’s Sevagram Ashram. And, her mother, my grandmother, taught at GM Girls School, where I had the honour of visiting earlier today. And my dad – also from a village and the oldest of 11 children – would move on to get his PhD. Their commitment to a lifetime of learning opened doors for themselves and for their family. They instilled this in us. They taught us the way forward is first to open our minds and then to open a book.”

A significant promise he made during his Jallandhar visit was: “”I will come back when I get a chance.”