The combination has been an unexpected success.
An Indian public and news media that were lukewarm before the official three-day visit began on Saturday have since become exuberant Michelle Obama fans.
“Dancing Queen Rocks India,” The Times of India, the world’s largest-circulation English language newspaper, trumpeted on its front page Monday. Mrs. Obama “demonstrated she could swing to desi beats with the best of them,” the paper said, referring to Indian beats. It lavished praise on her “matkas and jhatkas,” or dance moves involving swaying hips.
Mrs. Obama’s relaxed manner and enthusiasm also won her high praise. “She hugged me twice, very warmly, and held my hand,” said Baljit Kaur, a female village leader from the state of Punjab, who accompanied schoolgirls to New Delhi to see Mrs. Obama on Monday.
Carefully planned events have enabled Mrs. Obama to interact casually with children, albeit near a scrum of photographers and reporters. She offered advice about staying in school, shook a tambourine and encouraged a group of pig-tailed girls to believe in “women power.”
While Mrs. Obama’s thoughts on education have been politely received, many foreign politicians’ wives have come bearing the same message. As many as 60 percent of children live in poverty in India, overall literacy rates hover at 65 percent and female literacy rates are as low as 33 percent in some areas of the country.
Not all of the politicians’ wives have danced, though. In India, where everyone from teenage boys to septuagenarian aunts dance at weddings, a reticence to join the dance floor is seen as a troubling sign of a possible character flaw — one that Mrs. Obama certainly does not exhibit.
On Saturday, Mrs. Obama met with 33 orphaned and runaway children who are being taught English by Make a Difference, a nonprofit group. She played hopscotch and word games, and then picked up a tambourine and danced with the children to a theme song from a Bollywood movie.
Then she offered a little advice. “I didn’t grow up with a lot of money,” she told the children. “I never even imagined being the first lady of the United States. But because I had an education, when the time came to do this, I was ready.”
When there were no questions, Mrs. Obama suggested the group dance again, and was quickly surrounded by a bouncing circle of girls throwing their arms up in the air. The boys nearby jumped up and down.
On Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Obama visited students at Mumbai’s Holy Name High School, then joined them as they danced to a folk song. One video clip from that event is winging its way around the Internet, inspiring as much commentary on the grace of Mrs. Obama as the seeming left-footedness of her husband.
On Monday, she went on a tour of a craft museum in New Delhi with about 20 young girls, many among the first generation in their families to get an education. Mrs. Obama held their hands and put her arms protectively around them as they walked, admiring statues of Durga, a Hindu goddess, and antique scrolls.
After the tour Mrs. Obama, seated outdoors under a canopy of pink bougainvillea vines, told the girls to keep studying, they recalled later.
One of the girls, Manpreet Kaur, 14, took an overnight train from her village in the Punjab to meet Mrs. Obama. She said she asked Mrs. Obama, “If you have a fight with your husband, who apologized first?” Mrs. Obama replied that “the president has to say he is sorry first,” Manpreet said, to giggles.
While Indian designers bemoaned her decision not to wear a sari, Mrs. Obama’s covered-up, simple and discreet outfits here were also praised. “What she is wearing is reflective of her deep sense of respect for the Indian culture, and she has opted for colors and designs which do not attract attention to her,” designer Rina Dhaka told the Economic Times.
The Obamas leave India on Monday for Indonesia, the next leg of their Asian tour. There, Mrs. Obama will also tour cultural sites and meet with Peace Corps volunteers, an aide said Monday.
