Bhubaneswar: After the death of Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III became the monarch. He became the King at the age of 73. With this, people have started discussing about his journey from ‘Prince Charles’ to ‘His Majesty the King’. Queen Elizabeth II visited India thrice. King Charles has also visited India many times. He also visited Odisha once during his India tour. Continue to read to know about King Charles’ Odisha visit.
According to reports, Prince Charles came to Odisha in 1980 when he was 32-year-old. Late Janaki Ballabh Patnaik was the then Chief Minister of Odisha and the Governor was C. M. Poonacha when Prince Charles visited the State.
Charles stayed at the Governor’s house in Bhubaneswar and paid a visit to Haripur village in Puri district. He went to the village with the then-district magistrate and police officers. The village neither had pucca roads nor houses as it has today. Despite that, Prince Charles toured the village amid tight security.
Prince Charles also drank green coconut in the village. Besides, he also saw how the green coconuts are plucked from the tree and how the baskets are woven.
Now, with Prince Charles becoming the successor of Queen Elizabeth II, the villagers are recalling his 42-year-old memorable visit. Prince Charles had come to our village in 1980. At that time I was just 10-12 years old. Now as he took over the throne following the death of his mother, we feel happy and lucky that we had seen him here,” recalled Chittaranjan Panda, a resident of Haripur village.
Ms Kalinga