The envelope of the letter bore the GPO Bombay postage stamp and on it, Leslie Duncan Biden aka LD BidenHe had congratulated him on being elected to the Senate and told him they were related.
Captain Christopher Biden, who settled in India, seems the most likely candidate if Joe Biden had an ancestor here.
Leslie was based in Nagpur, but since her letter had flown through Bombay, it would not only be etched in Joe Biden’s memory as ‘Biden from Mumbai’, it would also become his icebreaker story in meetings. with Indian-Americans and Indian Leaders.
During his visit to India in 2013 as US Vice President, he provoked laughter when he went off script in his speech at the Bombay Stock Exchange to regret never having complied with the letter.
An article in an online newspaper claims that Leslie, who passed away in 1983, received a response from Joe Biden nine years after he wrote the letter. LD Biden, the document states, was a Anglo-Indian whose father was a photographer and whose brother went to England after India won Independence. He married a Goan woman and they had two sons and four daughters. Three of his daughters live abroad, while three other children recently passed away.
Leslie’s four grandchildren, who are based in Nagpur and work in other cities, are likely the only Biden left in India and have given up on making claims about a link to Joe Biden. TOI I contacted them, but they did not want to be interviewed.
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