By Dipankar De Sarkar
Windsor, Oct 27 (IANS) Indian flags fluttered in a gentle autumn breeze as a 21-gun salute boomed out Tuesday for Pratibha Patil in the first ceremonial welcome accorded an Indian President in the British royal town of Windsor.

Hundreds of people carrying the Tricolour and Union Jack lined the main cobbled street of the town, lying 40 km from London, leading up to Windsor Castle, at the start of what is only the third state visit to Britain by an Indian president, and the first in nearly 20 years.

Also lining the high street were alternating Indian and British flagpoles.

All the unrivalled and ancient pomp of a British state visit was rolled out for Patil moments after she was escorted by road to Windsor by Prince Charles - the eldest son of Britain’s ruling monarch Queen Elizabeth II - and his wife Camilla.

Patil and her husband Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat were received on a covered road outside Windsor station by the Queen and her husband Prince Philip before being taken to the 900-year-old Windsor Castle in a horse-driven carriage procession.

Patil and the Queen occupied the first carriage, which was driven by six white horses, followed by the two spouses in a carriage pulled by four chestnut-coloured horses.

Prince Charles, Camila, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Daggubati Purandeswari, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and other senior Indian and British officials followed in three more carriages.

Minutes after the five-carriage procession entered the castle, the massive pageantry of a British ceremonial welcome was rolled out before Patil, who set off the day’s proceedings by inspecting a guard of honour by the First Battalion of the Irish Guards.

Escorted by Prince Philip, while the Queen and Shekhawat looked on from under a white canopy, the diminutive Indian president walked past two columns of armed men in bearskin hats as the military band struck up a flawless Jana Gana Mana, followed by the British national anthem.

Patil was then treated to a spectacular equine march past.

Led by the Mounted Band of the Blues and Royals - literally a military band on horseback - the march past involved hundreds of brown and black horses, cannons and gun carriages from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

The ceremony marked the start of the first state visit from India since S. Radhakrishnan in 1963 and R. Venkataraman in 1990. Patil is also the first Indian President to be put up at Windsor Castle, where the Indian entourage will stay until Thursday.

Patil gifted her host an 83-year-old Kashmiri carpet and a shawl.

The Queen then showed Patil a selection of Indian items from the Royal collection, including a yarn shawl given by Mahatma Gandhi to her as a wedding present in 1947.

The shawl was spun by Gandhi himself and contains the words ‘Jai Hind’.

Later Tuesday, Patil received the leaders of the two main opposition parties - David Cameron of the Tories and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats - along with their key foreign office spokesmen and advisors.

She was set to attend a banquet dinner hosted in her honour by the Queen in the historic Long Room, with some 150 specially-invited guests.