US President Joe Biden’s curiosity about a possible Indian connection was rekindled as he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington. He joked that Modi was in the US capital to help him solve the mystery, which had piqued him ever since a man from India’s financial capital, Mumbai, had written a letter to him shortly after Biden had been elected to the US Senate.

The letter was written by a man who claimed to share the president’s last name. Modi claimed to have “hunted” documents that could help Biden establish his connection to the subcontinent, according to Associated Press.

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“Are we related?” Biden asked, to which Modi replied, “Maybe we’ll be able to take this matter forward, and maybe those documents could be of use to you.”

During his visit to India as vice president, Biden was reminded by the country’s press that there were indeed a few Bidens in India.

“And although we never admitted it … I’ve found out that there was a Capt. George Biden who was a captain in the East India Tea Company in India,” Biden said during the White House meeting, referring to the British East India Company, that controlled trade in India before the British Empire brought India under its direct rule.

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Biden, who frequently talks of his Irish ancestry, quipped that the British connection was “hard for an Irishman to admit.”

Biden, who has told versions of the anecdote to Indian audiences before, said Capt. Biden “apparently stayed and married an Indian woman” but he’d never been able to nail down further details.

Modi arrived in Washington on Wednesday for a three-day visit to the US, during which he attended the first in-person Quad summit hosted by President Joe Biden, with whom he also held a bilateral meeting. Modi then headed to New York to address the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly.