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          Patna, Jan 5 (IANS) Upbeat residents of Mauritius President   Rajkeswur Purayag's ancestral village in Bihar have decided to gift him a little   soil and a bushel of freshly harvested paddy when he visits them Sunday. Rajkeswur Purayag, whose ancestors migrated from Bihar to the island nation of   Mauritius in the 19th century, will visit Wajidpur viillage in Punpun block in   Patna district, about 20 km from here. 
 
 |  He is in India to attend the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas diaspora   meet.
 "Villagers, including members of Rajkeswur Purayag's extended   family, have decided to gift him a chunk of the soil from his ancestral village   that he could carry back home," Khurshid Alam, a district official, said   Saturday.
 
 He said villagers have also decided to gift him 'dhan ki bali'   or paddy crop. Besides, some villagers have collected money to gift him a   momento of silver.
 
 Rajkeswur Purayag's distant relative Mahesh Mahto, who   lives in the village, told IANS over telephone that villagers will gift 'soil of   the village' to the 'Mati Ke Lal'(Son of the soil).
 
 "It is like a   festival in the village, a day ahead of his visit," Mahesh, who works as a   mason, a poor man unlike his relative Rajkeswur Purayag, said.
 
 Another   district official Sushil Kumar said that the mood is upbeat and people are   eagerly waiting to welcome the visiting president.
 
 District police have   also tightened security.
 
 Rajkeswur Purayag's ancestors are said to have   migrated as Girmitiya labourers to Trinidad and Tobago, then a British colony in   the Caribbean islands, in the 19th century.
 
 In January last year, Kamla   Persad Bissessar, the first woman prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, visited   her ancestral village Bhelupur in Itarhi in Bihar's Buxar district. Her   great-grandfather Ram Lakhan Mishra reportedly left Bhelupur to cross the seas   in 1889.
 
 Nearly five years ago, Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra   Ramgoolam had visited his ancestral village in the state's Bhojpur   district.
 
 A large number of people from Bihar had migrated to Mauritius,   Fiji, Trinidad, Suriname, South Africa and other places in the 19th century to   serve as indentured labourers on sugarcane and rubber plantations.
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