N Srinivasan, the beleaguered Indian cricket administrator, may continue to be in the national media spotlight for all the wrong reasons, but another Srinivasan is making genuine waves in Washington, so much so President Barack Obama has touted him as one of his “favourite” persons right now.
At a White House event on Tuesday, Obama made a special mention of Srikanth “Sri” Srinivasan, who has just been confirmed as the US’s first-ever South Asian-American judge of the Court of Appeals in Washington DC and is widely speculated to be in line for a possible elevation to the Supreme Court when the next vacancy arises.
“I was proud to nominate Sri, and he was just confirmed unanimously to become the first South Asian American federal appeals court judge,” Obama said amid much applause at a function to mark the month of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Raising a laugh, Obama remarked: “I was telling his (Sri’s) kids, who are here today, if he starts getting a big head, walking around the house with a robe, asking them to call him “Your Honour”, then they should talk to me.”
After the Chandigarh-born and Kansas-raised Srinivasan was confirmed by the Senate with a stunning 97-0 vote last week, Obama had hailed him as “a trailblazer who personifies the best of America” and one would would now “serve with distinction on the federal bench”.
The AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community is among America’s fastest-growing demographic groups, with more than 13 million citizens.
“We are here today to honour the incredibly rich heritage and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. And there’s no better example of that diversity than the people who are in this room. We’ve got members of Congress; we’ve got members of my administration; we’ve got lots of special guests and talented performers,” Obama said. The large audience present in the White House East Room included Srinivasan and several other distinguished Indian-Americans.
“I can think back on my college years when my roommates were Indian and Pakistanis, which is how I learned how to cook keema and dal,” Obama remarked, adding: “And of course, I can dig back into my own memories of growing up in Hawaii and in Indonesia. And so certainly it’s been a central part of my life, the entire Asia Pacific region.”