Afsheen Irani, who changed her mind “at the last moment” and asked Obama the question on Pakistan, on Monday. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, Nov. 8: She is confident, forthright and spontaneous and not awed by anyone, as even Barack Obama now knows.

Yet the teenaged college girl has her feet firmly on the ground. A day after putting the US President on the back foot with a bouncer of a question — why America has not labelled Pakistan a terrorist state — Afsheen Irani, all of 19, has no starry airs despite the global media focus on her.

She can’t understand the hoopla. She says her question at the St Xavier’s College interaction had been an impromptu one — she just asked what “everyone wants to know”.

A worn-out but excited Afsheen spoke to The Telegraph this evening after a day spent hopping in and out of Mumbai’s crowded commuter trains to meet journalists, Indian and foreign.

“I admire him as the first black President of the US. His speeches are inspirational. But that did not awe me,” she said.

“I did not plan this. I had (originally) planned to ask him why US businesses were not setting up chairs in Indian universities the way Indian companies were doing it in American universities.”

Then, “at the last moment”, she changed her mind.

“I thought if I have this opportunity (to ask Obama a question), let me ask what is on everybody’s mind. I thought, ‘let’s get out of this diplomatic mode on terrorism’,” Afsheen said.

“My friends and all the students around me were patting me on the back after I asked the question.”

Afsheen could not understand what the “fuss was about” when the media mobbed her after the session. She found it surreal that reporters were jostling to talk to her and prime-time TV anchors wanted her in their studios to be part of opinion panels.

“I was quite nervous before the session. Minutes before he (Obama) walked in, I got a text message from my dad saying, ‘Ask your question whatever it is, but ask’. It was sheer destiny that I got the opportunity. I never imagined the buzz it would create — it was such a simple question. I am overwhelmed,” she said.

Perhaps the directness of the question was born out of the frustration that Afsheen says she and her friends often felt at the Indian system’s “chalta hai” attitude. She was deeply moved when many of the students suggested yesterday that they all get together and start a Facebook page on corruption and public policy.

Having been out all day — she had just finished a long interview with BBC World TV — Afsheen had not heard Obama’s Parliament speech today, but her friends kept her posted.

“They say he finally brought the P-word to his lips (Obama today mentioned the ‘terrorist safe havens’ in Pakistan and said the US would keep asking Islamabad to bring those behind 26/11 to justice). They were congratulating me. But I feel it is the relentless pressure of the Indian media and the strength of a nation of one billion that did it,” Afsheen said.

“On Sunday, I had found his answer to my question too diplomatic (Obama had spoken of India’s stake in Pakistan’s stability). But I gave him the benefit of the doubt as I understand his compulsions,” she added between apologies about her dog’s non-stop barking.

“I call her Heidi. I haven’t been able to spend much time with her since yesterday.”

The second-year management student at HR College is a resident of Jogeshwari in downtown Mumbai. Her father Faredoon Irani is a builder and mother Taubon, a lawyer.

But this was not Afsheen’s first encounter with Obama. “I was in New York last year in May as part of a student exchange programme with New York’s Stern School of Business. We were walking around Union Square Park when we suddenly noticed a huge crowd and security. Somebody said it was the Obamas and I remember we ran to see him. I never thought I would be speaking directly to him one day,” she smiled.

Afsheen, who is part of a solar-electrification project for rural India launched by her college, said her many extra-curricular commitments left her no time for hobbies. But she likes Bollywood films and reads when she is free — mostly “real-life stories and non-fiction”.

She is in two minds about her future. “My mother’s work as a lawyer inspires me. She often does not charge her poor clients. The law is an option. The other is to pursue a master’s in a good university abroad. I am looking out for scholarships.”