President Joe Biden shares a light moment with Indian Prime Minister Modi.

It was not all serious business at the first meeting between President Joe Biden and India’s Prime Minister in Washington after the US presidential elections. The two leaders also caught up on the American president’s own family links to the Indian subcontinent.

The American leader joked about “five Bidens in India” and a ‘Biden who married an Indian woman.” This had the audience in splits during the joint press conference.

To keep the joke going, Modi "informed" him he had come with documents that could help him in his quest for Bidens in India.

"I am not sure but when I was elected (as senator) as a 28-year-old kid in 1972, before I was sworn in, I got a letter from a person named Biden in Mumbai. I said I couldn't follow it up...”

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Later, as Vice President, Biden was in India and recalled being asked by local press if he had any Indian relatives. He retold the story of the letter. The next day, Biden said, he was informed by the local media that there were at least 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. He appeared to be referring to the British East India Company, a commercial power for centuries that controlled trade in colonised India and parts of southeast Asia.

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.

He joked that Modi was in Washington “to help me figure it out.”

Modi told the president that he had “hunted” for documents that would shed light on the president’s Mumbai connection, and brought his findings with him.

 “Are we related?” Biden asked, according to agencies.

The prime minister confirmed that the 46th US President did indeed have family connections to the Indian subcontinent.

“Maybe we’ll be able to take this matter forward, and maybe those documents could be of use to you,” Modi told Biden.