She was just 15 when she accompanied mother Hillary to India. Now 20, Chelsea Victoria Clintons interest in India, particularly culinary, continues unabated.
That was also the first time the American media got a real close look at the first daughter, in a new place and on her own, almost. As she went around town, Chelsea got rave reviews from the media, which noted her "intelligence and compassion" (talking at length about the history of Islam and holding babies at Mother Teresas convent).
Her interest in India is perhaps influenced by her mother who makes no bones about her abiding fascination with the country. Books, videos and films on India have been delivered to the White House on a regular basis, particularly just before and after the 1995 visit. Shes there for nearly every Indian do in Washington (and elsewhere) and Indian food (usually from the Bombay Club, just across the road) is the White House favourite.
Chelsea was born on February 27, 1980, and named after Chelsea Morning, the 1969 Joni Mitchell song. She entered the White House as a gawky 12-year-old. But the girl who was described as the "White House dog" by TV host and shock jock Rush Limbaugh was seen as a "poised junior diplomat" by an awed AP reporter during her trip to India.
But the brickbats outnumbered the bouquets. Republican Senator John McCain joked at a party fund-raising function in June 1998 that Chelsea was ugly because "attorney general Janet Reno was her real father". McCain later apologised. After she left school to join Stanford University in California, cultural critic Camille Paglia wrote a scathing column for Salon. Describing Chelseas boyfriend as "a wealthy, dishy, young Stanford spark", she asked: "Does anyone seriously believe that a freshman girl with Chelseas looks could normally have snagged a campus dreamboat of this rank?"
Then, of course, there were her fathers various indiscretions, named Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, among others. What may have prepared her for it was, perhaps, the role-reversal games she played with her parents when her father was Arkansas governor, and she was just six.
So President Bill Clinton wasnt joking when he told visiting prime minister I.K. Gujral in 1997 that "you have two ambassadors in the US. One here (pointing to envoy Naresh Chandra) and one in the White House." Perhaps he should have said three.
