Obama had gone to Wakefield High School in Arlington to give a speech welcoming students back to school, when he took a few questions from ninth-graders.
Lily, a student, asked: 'And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?'
'Well, you know, dead or alive, that's a pretty big list,' Obama was quoted as saying by Los Angeles Times Wednesday.
'You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine.'
Obama said: 'Now, it would probably be a really small meal because, he didn't eat a lot.'
'But he's somebody who I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. (Martin Luther) King, so if it hadn't been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States.'
Obama told the students that Gandhi represents the power of change through ethics and how to use that morality to foster change, themes he has repeated through his presidential campaign and administration.
Facing sharp divisions in Congress and within his own Democratic Party, Obama stressed Gandhi's fighting spirit and will to overcome long odds.
Gandhi helped 'people who thought they had no power realise that they had power and then helped people who had a lot of power realise that if all they're doing is oppressing people, then that's not a really good exercise of power'.
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