US President Barack Obama has said given a chance, he would like to have dinner with Mahatma Gandhi.

Obama was responding to a question from a student, Lilly, during his discussion with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, US, on Wednesday, where he welcomed students back to school. When Lilly asked the president to name a person he’d like to dine with, dead or alive, he answered, “I think it might be (Mahatma) Gandhi, who’s a real hero of mine.”

“It would probably be a really small meal because he didn’t eat a lot,” he said amidst laughter. But Gandhi was someone who had inspired people across the world, he said.

The president said he had hung a portrait of Gandhi in his Senate office “to remind me real results will not just come from Washington, they will come from the people”.