Hyderabad: A beaming Olympic champion PV Sindhu arrived this morning at the Hyderabad airport, where hundreds had gathered to greet her.
Top politicians and others jostled to present flowers and shawls and click selfies with the first Indian woman to win a silver medal at the Games.
With her is her coach Pullela Gopichand, who has now trained two Olympic medallists in Saina Nehwal and Sindhu. They have boarded a special open double-decker bus commissioned by the Telangana government all the way from Mumbai, and are travelling in a victory rally to a city stadium.
Also on the BEST bus, decorated with long strings of marigold and now driving slowly to Hyderabad's Gachibowli stadium is Srikanth Kidambi, trained by Mr Gopichand and who reached the men's badminton quarter finals at the Olympics.
Along with wrestler Sakshi Malik, who won a Bronze, Sindhu ensured that India did not return empty handed from Rio in Brazil, where this year's Olympic Games ended yesterday. The US topped the tally with 121 medals, 46 of them Gold.
Many people have lined up along the 30 km route to the stadium to cheer Sindhu, 21. Waiting at the stadium, where the Telangana government has organised a celebration, are hundreds, including students holding up big posters of the champ.
Both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh sent top ministers to greet Ms Sindhu at the airport in the capital they currently share. While Sindhu's mother P Vijaya is from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, her father PV Ramana is from Adilabad in Telangana.
Both states have announced rewards to celebrate Sindhu's Silver - the Telangana government will give her a cash reward of 5 crore, a residential plot in Hyderabad and have offered her a job. The Andhra Pradesh government too has offered Sindhu a job and will give her a cash reward of 3 crore and a residential plot in Amaravati, the new capital city it is building.
Later this week, PV Sindhu will be presented a car, a BMW that will be handed to her by her favourite sportsman and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. The car is from V Chamundeswarnath, the president of India's badminton association.
At Rio, PV Sindhu blazed through to the final, beating the World no 2, before she lost to world no 1 Carolina Marin of Spain 21-19, 12-21, 15-21 in a pulsating match that lasted an hour and 23 minutes.
Sindhu, a two-time World championship bronze medallist, became the first Indian woman player to win silver in the Olympics and only the fifth woman from India to win a medal at the games.
