Chennai: Hours after Joe Biden named Kamala Harris his Vice- Presidential choice, the Gopalan family in India was exited. We haven’t slept since we heard in the news. We are thrilled for Kamala.

She deserved it, said Harris Aunt Dr. Sarala Gopalan to media persons on Wednesday. Harris late grandfather P.V. Gopalan is one of her favorite people. She says whenever she visited Chennai with her mother; she loved spending time with him. He took her along on beach walks with his friends and she listened to them debating about corruption in India. She came to Chennai for his 80^th birthday and was ‘Pen pals’ with him till his death in 1998.

Though I miss her every day, I carry her with me where ever I go. I think of the battle she fought, the values she taught me, her commitment to improve health care for us all. As I continue the battle for the better health system, I do so in her name, Harris wrote about her mother.  The family has always been close-knit. Harris made her last visit of Chennai after her mother’s death in 2009 to be with her grandmother. When Harris was elected California’s Attorney General in 2010, Dr. Gopalan broke coconuts at the neighbourhood temple in Besantnagar.

When she called to tell me about her win, she teased me the coconuts had worked, said Dr. Gopalan, who performs the ritual every time Harris crosses a milestone.