Sunita in Gujarat on Friday. (AP)

Ahmedabad, Sept. 21: Sunita Williams visited her native village Jhulasan on her second day in Gujarat.

Thousands of villagers and schoolchildren from neighbouring areas turned up to welcome their “space queen”.

“Their beloved Sunita” mesmerised the village with just two words in Gujarati — “Kem chho (how are you)?” —while apologising for not knowing Gujarati or Hindi.

“I cannot speak Gujarati or Hindi, but I can understand the languages of your eyes,” she said.

Sunita reached Ahmedabad with her father on a week-long visit to India on Thursday. “I have come here to thank children who had prayed for my safety while I was in the space station,” the astronaut said.

She told the crowd there was “nothing like a border in this world…. You children are the part of this beautiful world. You can achieve anything you want”.

Recalling her friendship with Kalpana Chawla, the first India woman to go to space, Sunita said: “Kalpana had once told me ‘we are part of the universe which has no barriers’.”