The Hindu Business Line : This princess walked to school

Is it difficult to be a princess in this day and age, when the protocol can wear you out? "Not at all," says the Princess. "There are certain rules which you would call protocol and we would call rules... these have been a part of our lives since we were quite small."

The first thing that strikes you about Princess Benedikte of Denmark is that she wears her royalty rather lightly. Accessible and friendly, she is easy to talk to and on a visit to Chennai last week she talked in some detail on issues as diverse as horse riding, skiing and religious extremism. At the end of the interview one was amazed to find that one did not have to prefix every sentence with `Your royal highness'!

If this was possible, it has a lot to do with the fact that as a child she was brought up in as less an ostensible manner as possible. When asked to comment on why royalty should be so popular in countries like Denmark or Thailand, while receiving brickbats in some others, she says simply, "That may be because we try not only to mingle with the people but also have very close contact with our people."

This was one of the reasons why she and her siblings went to a public school. That was in the 1950s and, believe it or not, they actually walked the distance of nearly 2 km to school and walked back too!

To your astonished look she says, "Oh yes, we did that. Going to a public school was a very important part of our growing up; this was, of course, after World War II and the word called security didn't exist in our times, as also the media... at least not in the way it does now."

She adds, "The media did not intrude in our lives and they respected my parents' desire that we grow up outside of it."

The walk to the school took 21 minutes and "we had to walk regardless of whether it was raining or snowing. There were very few exceptions when we were allowed to take a car."

Relaxation came in the form of heading to the beaches. "We got a lot of exercise there, and in the evenings we would sometimes go to the opera and we had other forms of entertainment like going to our friends' houses and attending dance parties once a month."

The tall and slim regal woman, who became patron of the World Diabetes Foundation last March, loves to exercise and keep fit. "Which is good because I am a patron of this organisation and we all know that people with diabetes need to exercise to keep the condition under control."

`Exercise' for her is something as exotic as horse riding and skiing. While she manages to catch about an hour and half of horse riding a day, "for a year or so I've been working out on an exercise cycle... my knees are slightly weak, but I love skiing. I've just had my winter skiing in Switzerland."

When asked that while the rest of the world might have a very romantic notion of a princess in a fairy tale kind of way, did she find protocol difficult or tedious, she says, "Not at all. There are of course certain rules which you would call protocol and we would call rules... these have been a part of our lives since we were quite small."

She doesn't face any intrusion from the media in her private life. She admits that the media is indeed interested in the private lives of the Danish royalty, "but nowadays all you have to do is press a few buttons on the computer and you have all the information on the screen!"

But she has no complaints on media intrusion or the paparazzi. "Oh, I think I have enough of a private life. But in the public role I play... in certain organisations connected with diabetes, girl guides, etc, I am happy to have the media's attention, not for my sake, but for the good of the people with whom our organisations work."

And guess what, she has seen the all time favourite romantic thriller Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, where the princess, tired of her official duties, makes a disappearing act, has a whale of a time with the hero, and ends up falling in love with him.

"It was a wonderful movie," she says.

Did she ever feel like running away from it all?

"I guess that if I were a boy it would have been more difficult, but being a girl I didn't have too many problems, though we were not allowed to go to night clubs!"

This brought us to the obvious question: Did she marry for love, or was it an arranged marriage?

"No, mine was not an arranged marriage. I met my husband at a wedding in Holland."

So was it love at first sight?

"Actually I quite fancied him," she says with a smile, recalling that though there were some problems in tying the knot, "because my husband was not totally royalty... But we were in love and overcame the problems. He is German and luckily he had a very strong Swedish family tie — his mother was from the Swedish noble family — and there were other family ties too."

Princess Benedikte enjoys classical music "as also dancing and I do go to operas whenever I have the time but it is not that often."

As for food, she loves "light food and not the heavy gravies... but I am fond of good, tasty food, and that includes ethnic food, but not too spicy. I like Chinese food too and I think it's quite a lot of fun to eat with chopsticks... I'm not vegetarian, but I enjoy vegetarian food."

Quizzed on religious extremism and the tendency to equate it with Islam, she quips, "Oh extremism exists everywhere and you can't say it is there only in one religion; but we don't want it in any form."

Her dream for the future is for a more peaceful world and here she gives the example from the girls guide movement with which she is closely associated. "At international gatherings, when you see children from all over the world — different countries and different communities — what strikes you is that all of them get along so wonderfully well... . and it does not matter if they are Christians, Hindus or Muslims. They all relate at an equal level. I feel that it is we grownups who seem to create problems. When I see the children together, they don't seem to have any problems. We should be able to live and travel within the world with an open mind," she says.

This is her first visit to India, which she finds "a colourful country with wonderful people and such fine, warm climate", she has decided to come back. Her official involvement with an international girls guide organisation will bring her to Mumbai in 2006. Meanwhile she finds the relationship between Denmark and India "excellent. We have about 75 Danish companies operating in India and this relationship will only grow."

So has she seen any Indian movies?

"I must admit I haven't seen any, but I've seen pictures of them and both the men and the women are very good looking." At this point, Michael Sternberg, the Danish Ambassador to India, intervenes to point out how popular the Aamir Khan starrer Lagaan was in Denmark. "It was voted by the Danes as the most interesting movie. We know it was about a cricket match and let me assure you the Danish people don't know anything about cricket and yet they loved it... "

Princess Benedikte participated in a meeting of the Diabetic Research Foundation in Chennai and also visited the Arvind Eye Hospital in Madurai, with which she "was most impressed. It was quite astonishing how many patients they are able to treat through the dedication of a very special team of people... it's almost like a family company."

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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