Former British first lady Cherie Blair was recently in Mumbai and she just couldn’t stop raving about the Bandra-Worli Sea Link.
Despite having come to Mumbai only a few months ago, she kept asking a couple of members in her entourage, “I have never laid my eyes on it before...how come?.” Until she is informed that the Sea Link was opened well after she leftIndian shores the last time. “I hope it is going to improve Mumbai traffic,” she chirps with her trademark smile.
Blair was a natural at being able to shut the whole world out, despite the hullabaloo surrounding her at the residence of Sheriff of Mumbai Indu Shahani where a special high tea had been served in her honour. She has no qualms retiring from the spotlight in the residence’s lavish living room into a more humbler looking guest bedroom, finding a corner for herself on the bed and exclaiming aloud, “The bed is so much more comfortable.”
Working closely towards empowering women, especially rural Indian women as part of her Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, she says that being a representative of the fairer sex makes her feel stronger. She emphasises, “As long as you find women you can help, you feel valuable. We need to stop considering ourselves as the second lead compared to men. That is when we will really be able to alter the situation of many women across the globe.”
Since the time she has been in the spotlight, people have always wanted to know about her work and about her personal life. It can get overwhelming sometimes and Blair asserts, “Everybody is entitled to his personal space.” And to give the world a glimpse of what she really is, she does not depend on newspapers or lifestyle magazines, instead as she puts it, “Write my autobiography.”
She explains, “When I wrote my autobiography, I didn’t want it to be a story of just my 10 years at Downing Street. I spoke about the 50 years that took me from my humble beginning to being an observer of current affairs today.” There may have been ups and downs in her life, but Blair insists, “I look at myself as being half-full, not half-empty.”
Her time in Mumbai was short — the reason why she couldn’t go shopping anywhere, but she says, “I am taking a lot of memories back home.” Mumbai is one of her favourite cities and she points out, “It is the sheer vibrancy of India that I love. There is so much more colour than back home.” With a pause, she adds, “Since the last elections, there definitely has been a change in the way Indians are looking at themselves. There is a sense of competency and they know the world is watching them.”
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