When Princess Francoise Sturdza walks into the room in a Mumbai hotel, she is dressed in a red dress, teamed with exquisite golden jhumkas. Her style statement really says it all about the princess — who spends half the year in India, working with the various charity organisations she is involved in, and the other half in the West.
Her latest visit is to promote her NGO Heart for India, which works towards eradicating poverty. It was set up in 2005, and 10th anniversary celebrations are being planned for this November.
Telling us about Heart for India’s work, Sturdza says, “We believe education is the cure. We start working with children when they are two years old and push them until they pass out of Class 12. It is very important, because if they stop midway, they aren’t literate and then they come back to poverty. In India, there are 300 million illiterate people — that’s more than 20 per cent of the population…”
Over 2,500 children have been helped by Heart for India so far. Helping young girls with their education is especially important, Princess Francoise believes, because, “If she gets a diploma and a permanent job, then she gets out the dowry system…
When I’ve visited families in the slums, I’ve found that they spend five lakhs to marry off their daughters when they earn just '10,000 a month! The parents end up being in debt till the end of their lives…when a girl has an education, she is confident; she’s no longer a slave and comes out of the cycle of poverty”.
Sturdza first came to India in 2000, after reading a book about Vasco Da Gama’s arrival here. “The minute I came here, I was sure it was my second home. I visited Kerala and felt an immediate connection. I love Cochin and its backwaters…” she says. Impressed by “the will of the people here to work under any conditions” she decided to set up her charity here.
Many of her experiences in India will now find their way into a book that the princess is writing. Titled, From a Prince to a Pirate, it also chronicles Sturdza’s journey from being married to a prince to the “pirate” — Gregory David Roberts, the author of the bestseller Shantaram.
“It’s not an autobiography, more a rendering of my experiences. I’m talking about my experiences in India, my work with the foundation and about Greg. Then I go back to the past and I talk about my first husband. I have often been asked ‘How could you, as a princess, marry a guy who has been in jail?’ Many people fail to understand how I could make two decisions that were so opposite (in nature)… Many women wouldn’t have taken the jump, because they would fear for their reputations. But in the end, you must understand that you are not marrying a prince or a ‘pirate’ — you are marrying a human being. This is my experience of having a totally different life, I lived with a fascinating man and a fantastic loving man. I had nearly nine years of married life with my (first) husband, and a lot many adventures. We were young and building our lives, and in the midst of building a professional and personal life, you forget to maintain the tenderness and importance of your love,” she recounts.
She describes Gregory Roberts, from whom she recently separated, as a “fantastic, clever man”. “He knows a lot about everything so every day with him was a discovery. We talked about plants, history, we talked about everything. It was beautiful. I gave him a lot of information about art and he shared everything he knew with me. He was the best husband!” Princess Francoise says, before adding with a laugh, “I’m not saying that the first one was not good, but he was different!”
Sturdza shares that she got to see a different side of India, and of Mumbai, with Gregory Roberts. By his side, she also met with literary icons like Salman Rushdie and popstar Madonna, and she intends to include her encounters with them in her book. “There is so much to learn from them,” she says.
