The Hindu Business Line : Her `best title' yet

The single-most endearing feature of this `princess' is that she can be so disarming and down to earth. And, of course, the fact that the British woman loves India and talks charmingly about "the first seven years of my life that I spent in India. I was born in Delhi; my father was in the cavalry."

Princess Salimah Aga Khan, currently SOS-Kinderdorf International Ambassador, attained the title of Princess when she married Aga Khan, head of the Ismaili Muslim sect.

Three children and 24 years later, this former British model got a divorce in 1995. Shortly after, she auctioned her jewellery (through Christies') for a whopping £18 million, and famously told a journalist who asked if she missed her jewellery: "Absolutely not; I've got only one pair of ears and one neck!"

But what she does miss is something that will warm the heart of any Indian... the ability to speak in Hindi. Recently in Chennai to visit the SOS Children's Village in Tambaram and to lay the foundation stone for the construction of 225 houses in Pondicherry for tsunami victims, Salimah says she is "very shattered when people ask me: `Oh you've been to India and Pakistan; how do you find the weather there?' For one born here and who spent seven years of her life in the sub-continent, it's terrible to be asked such a question. If you spend the first seven years of life in any place, you really feel very close to it," says the 65-year-old woman comfortably and elegantly clad in a salwar-kameez, with diamonds glittering on her "one pair of ears".

But she finds it "such a shame that I've forgotten my Hindi. It used to be my second language. But when you don't hear or speak it for 20 years, you tend to forget a language." She tells the story of her youngest son — she has one daughter and two sons — who went to a pre-prep school in the US where French was on the curriculum. "My children have been educated in French and when I told him: Please do keep up your French, he said: `Mum, how could I ever forget my French; it is my second language' and I said: `You'd be very surprised, you need to talk in the language and hear it or else it doesn't come back."

But, adds Salimah, in the last 24 years, "one day a phrase came back... and I thought: Great, it'll come back, but it didn't. It was just a household phrase; one lady was saying to another in Hindi to take a jar and dust it and I understood the whole sentence."

Her association with SOS began 10 years ago when she travelled to Polynesia where a friend casually introduced her to the SOS children's villages that provide orphaned and destitute children with not only a home but an entire family, complete with mother and siblings. As Uma Narayanan, Managing Trustee of SOS Children's Villages, India, puts it, "At SOS villages children grow up in a home-like environment, where love and dignity replace abandonment and destitution, solace and hope eliminate fear and desperation."

By the time SOS had finished building Polynesia's first children's village, Salimah had become hooked to the organisation. Since then she has visited SOS villages in several countries, including those for Afghan refugee children in Peshawar, Pakistan.

On how it feels to be involved in such a venture after the cushy and luxurious life she led as Aga Khan's wife, she says, "Of course I had many years of social work visiting hospitals, schools, clinics and dispensaries. That was very good for me because it was like a natural progression." She denies that her participation in charities then used to be more "ceremonial" than anything else. "A lot of it was done on my own interest. I've always had a social conscience as I was brought up by strong parents and it develops as you go along."

On her visit to the SOS villages for Afghan children, she says, "It was an extraordinary experience because they'd been there for well over 20 years. A journalist said to a child: `Where do you come from?' And the boy said, `I come from here'. And the journalist said: `But have you never been home' and the boy said: `But this is home; I was born here. My mother was also born here'."

On her ability to communicate with children in countries where she does not speak the local language, Salimah says, "Language is never a problem with children. Children everywhere are the same, naughty, lovable and communicative. I used to think earlier how will I communicate? I speak French but not Portuguese, so how will I communicate with Portuguese children? But it is never a problem; children everywhere have the same dreams, they all want to become pilots, doctors, soldiers or teachers."

Does she feel sad that such dreams cannot come true? "But they can with these children, because they have a solid base, they have a mother, siblings, a family life. They will get an education and get back what they have lost. Of course they can't all become pilots but they will be taught how to be electricians, or plumbers, or builders."

On the invasion of Iraq and the continuing violence affecting Iraqi children, Salimah says raising her voice, "I'm so upset about Iraq; what can you say? It's such a disaster." On Britain's involvement in the invasion and now the occupation of Iraq, she says, "I can't bear it. I can't `Blair' it! It's terrible."

She, as an SOS ambassador, and the organisation itself would love to do something for the children of Iraq but for that to happen things have to stabilise there. "If they had an opportunity, SOS would do wonderful work there but the time has to be right; I also know they would so much like to help in Afghanistan, for example."

Salimah, who has visited India many times during calamities like the floods in Orissa or the earthquake in Gujarat, marvels at the fact that after the tsunami devastation, "within 48 hours, they were already into starting long-term aid; it is the long-term commitment to take children into adulthood, that makes SOS unique."

Looking back at her work in the social sector she says that over the years she has been involved with several organisations; "I've always believed that charity should be silent so I did things that I didn't talk about. But when the President of SOS Villages Helmut Kutin asked me in 2000 to be the international ambassador for children, I was very, very honoured. It's the best title that I've ever had. At the same time I didn't want to do anything publicly but Mr Kutin was very persuasive... he is wonderful," she says, adding, "there are quite a few football players who're ambassadors and many of them come from rather humble backgrounds so they know what it is like to not always have food on the plate."

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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