Media commentators have often called her a woman with her own mind. For, Salma Ansari, wife of Vice President Hamid Ansari, is unmindful of political correctness, protocol strictness and insubstantial refinement.
Clear and forthright, both in her thoughts and expressions, Mrs Ansari carries her heart on her sleeve, belying her age and status.
This suits her calling in life. Running a charity educational chain in the slums and villages of Aligarh, it helps being devoid of protocol barriers. Al-Noor, the trust which runs the three schools, is the proverbial light which has penetrated the darkness in many a life.
“I was amazed that the place which boasted of a 135-year-old institution like Aligarh Muslim University, had in its backyard over 10,000 young children with no access to basic formal education,” says Mrs Ansari. “Govt schools were defunct. I knew there was something wrong, and things won’t change unless someone stepped forward to change them.”
From a rebellious student in the 1960s who once wanted to settle down in London, earn her living as a writer, stay single for life and keep dogs for company, it was indeed a long journey from Iraq to Aligarh.
“My father, who was posted in Iraq UN mission, realised that I was getting too westernised and romantic for Indian values. He sent me to a girls’ college in Aligarh to finish my studies and learn more about our culture; the only leeway I could get was opt for English literature,” says Mrs Ansari.
Aligarh was a shocking “gated community” for her. Mr Ansari persuaded her college principal to allow an elected students union. Here as the first elected president of the union, she encountered the injustices meted out to a woman in a conservative society.
“There were conflicts, sufferings and struggle. They pinched since I came from a different background. But I survived.” Marriage with Hamid Ansari, an IFS officer, took her all around the world. After retirement, Mr Ansari was offered the chair of vice chancellor in AMU in 2000. Life had come a full circle for Mrs Ansari.
A no less dramatic turn of events led to the formation of Al-Noor. “While in AMU, I joined a riding club. Of course, some people were scandalised. But as always, I barely cared. It was during one such impromptu riding sessions that I strode into a small hamlet off the campus. What I saw there hit me hard.
It was poverty at its worst. There was this young child, about two-year-old who was sipping sewage water. There was mud, grime and slush all around the area. I felt someone had punched in my stomach, and I was gasping for air.”Her coach comforted her by saying that ‘it will be over soon, people come, see this, feel bad, then get used to it’.
source: http://www.articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> Collections> Aligarh Muslim University / by Pankaj Molekhi, ET Bureau / May 02nd, 2010