What's in a name? Well a lot if you are a resident of Carterpuri. The identity of this nondescript villlage of Haryana owes it all to its name. 20 kms from national capital Delhi this sleepy village shot to fame in 1978 when the then US President Jimmy Carter came calling. Overwhelmed by Carter's gesture, the village Daulatpur-Nasirabad was rechristened as Carterpuri.

A little more than three decades later, when Obama announced his India soujourn, Carterpuri were anxious to have him visit.

The precedent set by Carter was, however, not carried forward by his successors Bill Clinton in 2000 and George W Bush in 2006 visit to India. Nothing changed in the village's lot when Obama itinerary was made public on Thursday.

Name apart, not much has changed for the village.  It juts out from amidst swanky gurgaon highrises as an eyesore for many. Many US companies have their offices in Gurgaon, most of them are IT companies and BPOs.

But neither the US connection nor the turnaround of Gurgaon has made a difference to the lives of the residents here.

Carterpuri lacks basic amenities.Urbane Palam Vihar and Sector 23A flourish next doors. It is virtually a hotbed of malaria and dengue. The villagers say that there is hardly any household which does not have people suffering from either of the disease.

“Fogging has not taken place for several months, leading to rise of mosquitoes in the area,” a villager Ramesh Chand who runs a general store told Governance Now. “No doubt we have a primary health centre but it only treats women, people with fever, cough and cold. This health centre can’t treat patients with dengue and malaria. The main hospital is 10 km away,'' this sixty-year old man said.

Carterpuri has three thousand houses and 15,000 people live in this village and there is one primary and one senior secondary school. Most of the people who work in small jobs in nearby areas live in rented accommodation in the village.

“Hardly anything has changed here after we got the name Carterpuri,” an angry villager Naresh Chand told. The village passage is also choked and the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has acquired land around the village leaving hardly any passage for the villagers.

Villagers look at their modern neighbourhood with awe as it has been developed on their agriculture land. The villagers now realise that the compensation given to them was meagre. “How can development not happen even after it carries the US president’s name?”  a naive Chand added.

In fact, the new name was given by then chief minister of Haryana Chaudhary Devi Lal soon after Carter's visit to the village.

Carter visited this village along with his wife Rosalynn and his Indian host prime minister Morarji Desai on January 3, 1978. “The village was declared a model village but nothing happened afterwards. In fact, Carter wanted to help but Indian government did not want it. That was a wrong deicsion,'' Narendra a villager, told Governance Now.

Why did Carter come to this village? Jimmy Carter’s mother Lillian Gordy Carter lived in the village at the time of partition and worked as nurse for the US Peace Corps. This was the connection. She used to stay in the three-storey haveli of Jaildar Sarfaraz Ali's haveli, which was been razed three years ago.

The only remnant of the haveli was the boundary-wall.

In fact, bits of history also became dust with the haveli.

“Earlier this area used to be frequented by some American tourists but after the haveli is gone, nobody has visited this village,” said Kapil in his early twenties with a sad expression on his face.

“We could not protect the building, we should have protected it for the sake of tourists and keeping history intact,” he commented. “No body objected when the haveli was broken,” agreed another villager with Kapil.

Also people complain it is no longer village in sense that Carterpuri has now come under Gurgaon Municipal Corporation ward number-3. “So we did not have panchayat election this year,” said a villager.

Kartar Singh, a retired postman of the village who treasures a letter from Carter, the last communication from the president's office, reminisces, “The last communication with him took place in 1979 and after that there has been no communication.”

He has saved the black and white photographs of the former US president and his wife in Haryanvi dress with ghunghat on her head. The laminated photographs along with the communication with the White House and villagers where Carter and his wife saying thank you for hosting them during their village trip are last few treasures left now to Singh.

Singh, 70 years old now, was 38 Carter visited the village. “He stayed here for an hour and walked entire village,” Singh remembered Carter’s visit.

Carter and his wife visited the haveli where his mother Lillian had stayed before partition (the Muslim landlord had left India to Pakistan during partition). “What arrangements were made for his visit! There was a massive cleanliness drive and whole village was white-washed before the trip. The security was upped in the area,” Singh added.

Buddho Devi, now in her seventies, relives how she and other women had welcomed Rosalynn Carter. “We had performed a traditional aarti. Rosalynn participated in village rituals. The villagers showered them with handmade gifts such as clothes, shoes and curios,” she said.

Carter’s visiting his mother's lodging during her brief stay in India brought the village unprecedented fame. The villagers do not want their famous connection to end.

So desperately some hold on to this that they will try hard to convince you that Carter was born here. They have probably convinced themselves. The Democrat president, however, was born on October 1, 1924, in Georgia.

The villagers also complain that after his maiden trip, he did not care to make another round despite visiting India on several occasions. They do not begrudge him these snubs though. “Carter is like a family member for us,” Singh said. The villagers have also kept a tab of American politics and especially of Carter.

They need another school, a college and a health centre - but at least one named after Jimmy Carter or his mother.

In fact, they also know the former president was given Nobel Prize in peace in 2002. “When Carter was given Nobel Peace Prize, people of this village here were happy too,” said Singh. But they are saddened that the connection with Carter is lost.

For few years after the Carter’s trip January 3 was celebrated as village day to mark his visit. But as the memory has faded and the haveli also gone, there is just a token remembrance of a day. The photographs and name of the village iare now the only reminders

As Obama is visiting India, villagers see faint hope. Many villagers want Obama to visit despite knowing that Carterpuri is not on his itinerary. They are disappointed but still want him to come and revive the American connection.

“President Obama should come to this village as it may lead to extra developmental work here,” said Ishwar Singh Yadav, a panchayat member, echoing what many in Carterpuri feel.