NEW DELHI: In a quiet village tucked in the shadow of India’s capital, the late US president Jimmy Carter’s name is etched for posterity.Carterpuri, or the “village of Carter” was abruptly renamed from Daulatpur Nasirabad after an hour-long visit by the Nobel laureate in 1978.The renaming was suggested by India’s then-prime minister Morarji Desai who accompanied Carter on the visit to the small hamlet, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from New Delhi.”When the proposal was mooted, all the village elders immediately said yes,” recalled 71-year-old resident Attar Singh, who vividly remembers the January afternoon from nearly half a century ago.One of the last surviving members from the generation old enough to remember the occasion, Singh said he was “distressed” by Carter’s death last month, and played a key role in staging a small tribute ceremony.A picture of the former president was quickly downloaded from the internet, framed, garlanded and placed at a local war memorial where a group of village elders made offerings of salty porridge and a newly stitched traditional turban.Singh said the porridge and the turban, along with a condolence message, were then shipped to the US Embassy.”The entire village grieved because we considered him as one of our own,” said Rajiv Kumar, a younger resident who was a toddler when Carter visited.The body of Carter, who died at the age of 100 last month, is currently lying in state in Washington and will be buried Thursday in his home state of Georgia.
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