India and America clinked glasses in their new whirlwind friendship at an elaborate and exotic state dinner at the White House last night as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee profusely praised Bill and Hillary Clinton--and also Christopher Columbus, "who set sail for India but landed in America. I wonder where we would be if he had actually reached India."

The line got a big laugh from the nearly 700 assorted political, business and entertainment glitterati lucky enough to snag one of the coveted seats in what was by far the largest--and possibly last--such event of the Clinton administration.

For his part, the president quipped in his pre-dinner toast that Vajpayee, "when he's not writing Hindi poetry, actually likes to read novels by John Grisham. I am actually related to the Grishams, but all Grishams with money are distant relatives."

Another laugh. And thus the leaders of the world's two largest democracies bonded in that human way that can send a ray of hope into the vast threat posed by the presence of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent and the ongoing dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

The threat was certainly on the minds of many guests last night, underlying a general atmosphere of brotherly jollity in the tented palace of gold, pomegranate and more gold on the South Lawn.

"I think the threat of nuclear annihilation has been played down during this visit," said Indian author Ved Mehta, one of scores of prominent Indians and Indian Americans on the scene. "India cannot fight mosquitoes--what will they do with nuclear bombs?"

Said model and political-environmental activist Christie Brinkley, dressed in drop-diamond earrings and a body-clinging beige dress: "It would be great if India and Pakistan could find friendship like this and save us from nuclear destruction."

As she spoke before clicking cameras at the White House's east guest entrance, her husband, architect Peter Cook, stood by solicitously, his unmoving right hand firmly planted upon the exact epicenter of her behind.

Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel said he thought both India and Pakistan would accept disarmament "if enough pressure is brought to bear on each. Nuclear proliferation is the greatest threat of the century." New Age guru Deepak Chopra agreed. "We have no choice," he said. "If we go the way of the predator with nuclear weapons, we risk extinction."

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) had a positive slant on the matter, expressed with his usual gentle eloquence: "Gandhi gave us the way of nonviolence," he said. "India should show us the same way now."

But all was not grim last night. Goldie Hawn, wearing a flaming red something-or-other, shrieked "Divine! Divine!" with delight as she encountered an old pal, singer Melissa Etheridge. "India is one of my favorite places in the world," she confided later. Comedian Al Franken said he didn't "know anything about that nuclear stuff. Tonight is for the good stuff."

And so it was. Indian tennis legend Vijay Amritraj cast Vajpayee as an unsung hero. "He is one wonderful human being. Imagine keeping people together in a country with more than a billion people."

A never-married bachelor and published poet, Vajpayee, 75, has an attractive, self-made-man history for Americans. A former student activist and journalist, he was born to a government schoolteacher father in the poor province of Gwalior on Christmas Day.

Last night's event saw the traditional White House reception line virtually done away with in deference to Vajpayee's apparently losing battle with osteoarthritis, particularly around his left knee.

A gourmet cook and lover of traditional Indian food, the Indian leader also had to deny himself a full sampling of the White House chef's elaborate efforts with American ingredients and Eastern spices as part of a weight-loss regimen to help combat the disease.

Guests dined on chilled green pea and cilantro soup over marble potatoes for starters, and wild Copper River salmon for the main course, served with garlic-chanterelle emulsion and red Kuri squash (the chef making a point of emphasizing that this was "Kuri" and "not curry").

Indeed, the chef's description of the soup could just as well have represented the strange diplomacy of the evening: "It's all about sweetness and smoke."

Besides hints of Indian kitsch--candles, china, chairs and leaves sported gold tones--the theme for the vast pavilion tent was simply America-in-the-fall, with 70 tables decked out with soft-yellow roses, pale hydrangeas and rare wartah proteas surrounding mangoes and pears on pomegranate damask tablecloths.

The dinner's glamour-power nexus was ratcheted up by the advent of the first lady as a pol in her own right--smiling, stunning and toasting everyone, decked out in a brown leopard-print gown by Oscar de la Renta. She seemed fresh and unbloodied from last week's fierce debate with her opponent for a U.S. Senate seat from New York, Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.)

Vajpayee said in his official toast, "I'm grateful to Mrs. Clinton for taking time from her campaign" to attend the dinner, a line that brought sustained applause--and an apparently startled and pleased reaction from Mrs. Clinton.

The gifts exchanged were as delicate as the new diplomatic romance. Vajpayee gave Clinton a glass sculpture of the god Ganesha--Indian heralder of prosperity--by artist Anjolie Ela Menon, titled "Revered Image in Glass."

The Indian leader received an engraved sterling-silver cache pot from Tiffany's; it included an etching of the dogwood blossom from the president's home state of Arkansas.

Dinner guests also included Jhumpa Lahiri, this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction; Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian American into space; portraitist Chuck Close; comedian Chevy Chase; Event.com CEO Reggie Aggarwal; U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Celeste; Columbia University economics professor Jagdish Bhagwati; and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was wearing a matronly blue suit and lamented to a friend, "I wish could have worn a sari tonight."

Following Vajpayee's request for classical music, entertainment was provided by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, playing excerpts from "Don Giovanni."

The evening was an Indian summer indeed, climaxing--in a sense--with these dramatic words of Clinton's toast:

"Together," he said, "India and America can change the world."