When Queen Elizabeth II visited India for the first time in January 1961, the route from the airport in Delhi to the official residence of the Indian president was reportedly packed with nearly a million people.
"Indians forgot their troubles this week. Not completely, of course, but economic hardship, political squabbling and worry about Communist China, the Congo and Laos seemed to fade in the background. Queen Elizabeth II was here, and the capital, at least, appeared determined to make the most of it," reported The New York Times.
The Times said trains, buses and oxcarts ferried people to the capital. Here they wandered on the streets and loitered on lawns hoping to catch a glimpse of the royal couple. "They seemed to look upon the Queen and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, as impresarios who made it possible to forget and have fun," the report said.
At the same time, the newspaper reported that "Elizabeth came not as a patronising ruler on a tour of an empire, but an equal" - she was the first British monarch to take the throne after India's independence from British rule in 1947.
The trip also offered a chance for India to show a British ruler "that they had not done so badly since her people left": its "jet-age airports, their new homes and office buildings, steel mills and their nuclear reactors", for example.
For the royal couple, the six-week tour of the subcontinent was also a rich discovery of India. British Pathe footage from that trip offers a fascinating insight into the warm reception that the couple received.
The Queen toured the cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata (then known as Bombay, Madras and Calcutta) and visited historic landmarks such as the Taj Mahal, the Pink Palace in Jaipur and the ancient city of Varanasi. She attended a number of receptions and spent two days at a hunting lodge of a maharajah and rode an elephant. The royal couple were guests of honour at the grand Republic Day parade on 26 January.
At Delhi's sprawling Ramlila Maidan, the Queen addressed a rapturous gathering of several thousand people. She rode to the Taj Mahal in Agra in an open car waving to the crowds. She visited a steel plant in West Bengal built with British aid and met its workers.
In Kolkata, she visited a monument built in the memory of Queen Victoria. A horse race at the thriving local course was organised for the couple and the Queen presented the cup to the owner of the winning horse. Covering the Queen's ride in an open car from the airport in Kolkata to the city, a reporter of the state broadcaster AIl India Radio (AIR) quoted a Yorkshire Post editorial that she might not be the empress of India, but the enthusiasm of Indian crowds proved she was still empress of million of Indian hearts, according to an account of the trip.