US President Barack Obama has said given a chance he would like to have dinner with Mahatma Gandhi, whom he considers a real hero.

During his discussion with ninth-graders at Wakefield High School in Virginia, a student Lilly asked him: “Hi. I’m Lilly. And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be”.

“Dinner with anyone dead or alive? Well, you know, dead or alive, that’s a pretty big list,” Obama responded.

“You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine,” Obama said. “Now, it would probably be a really small meal because he didn’t eat a lot,” he said amid laughter.

Calling Mahatma Gandhi as the source of inspiration for many, Obama said: “He is somebody whom I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr King, so if it hadn’t been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States.”

“He ended up doing so much and changing the world just by the power of his ethics, by his ability to change how people saw each other and saw themselves and help people who thought they had no power realise that they had power, and then help people who had a lot of power realise that if all they’re doing is oppressing people, then that’s not a really good exercise of power,” Obama said.

Speech debate puzzles Obama

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