• And how India embraced you! Pardon my saying so, (laughing) but it forgot the other half of you. (Her mother, Bonnie Pandya, is of Slovenian descent.)

Absolutely. It's just overwhelming in India -- right from the small towns I went to in Gujarat all the way to the capital, New Delhi. The kids -- their eyes become huge. The questions flow out of the kids; they are so excited about space.

• You have been competing with the victorious Twenty20 cricket team and you've done fine.

Unfortunately I don't really understand cricket but am happy India did a great job.

• Say that to anybody in India or on a flight and you'll get a one-hour tutorial on cricket.

I hope so. That would be good.

• How do you balance Massachusetts and Mehsana?

I have family and friends all over the world and I'm very lucky for that. I feel a big connection to Massachusetts. I was a child there. I also feel a big connection to India, so going to Jhulasan in Mehsana district of Gujarat was overwhelming. There's lots of (family) history there; there are friends of my father from when he was child.

• In one of your earlier interviews you said that leaving India and settling down in America was perhaps the most enterprising, bravest thing for your father to do.

I feel that way. I have challenged kids here to undertake things they don't know about. Every step I took in life was not all that familiar, but I'd heard of other people being successful in that arena -- for example joining the military and becoming a pilot. My father followed in his brother's footsteps, but it meant leaving so much behind to try to do something in a place very far away. Just this morning I was told he travelled by boat, not by plane, to reach the U.S. I think it takes a lot of bravery to go and try something really new in another country.

... contd.