Agency:iDiva

Life runs in bullet points for Nita Ambani. Her kids’ homework, the kitchen menu, her brainchild, the

’s schedule, her IPL cricket team’s agenda, our interview...

India’s most moneyed woman sets out her day in meticulously- scribbled bullet points. Befittingly, at the start of our interview, as I fish out my dictaphone, she unravels a sheet of paper where she’s jotted down some salient topics for our chat. It’s official, I’m facing a woman who fate may have bestowed with the Ambani surname, but in her heart, she stays what she always wanted to be: a teacher.

Which, by the way, is her rejoinder to my very first question. Did the desire to be more than the Ambani bahu spur her to take up so much; was that her way of being powerful on her own steam? “To me, power is the greatest enabler, a catalyst for change. And education is the biggest tool to bring about any change. Which is why I like to be involved in moulding the thoughts of the next generation through my school and other academic initiatives.”

What about money, does that help in buying power

? “Wealth and power don’t go together. Power cannot be brokered

. To me, power is responsibility. And I derive it from my family,my work,my passion and my very middle-class values.”

Wearing a pretty fuchsia shift dress in her overwhelmingly resplendent residence, Nita Ambani may look like a million bucks, but her belief system is very real. She calls it middle-class. “While growing up,

I lived in a traditional joint family in Mumbai’s suburbs.

We were two sisters and 10 other cousins— that’s 11 girls and just one male cousin in one house. Girls in our family were given equal freedom. My parents told me that I could do what I wanted, but it came with a rider: do your best in whatever you choose. Besides academics, I used to be good at swimming and dancing, but the desire to excel in one extra-curricular activity had me quit swimming to focus on Bharatanatyam.”

And Bharatanatyam it was that got her first noticed by Dhirubhai, her visionary father- in-law, at a dance performance. What followed was a meeting with his son Mukesh and a whirlwind courtship.Yet again, it was her middle-class values that saw her say yes to Mukesh within a few months of dating. “My mum was a disciplinarian and we were barely allowed to go out — just four times in a year — and there was no pocket money given. Not to mention my curfew, which was midnight. As Mukesh worked late nights, he could only come across to see me by 11 pm to Santacruz, where I stayed. Just an hour later, we had to toe the curfew. So he said, ‘Let’s get engaged.’ We did. That, of course, did not sort out the curfew issue, so we decided to do away with the deadline totally and take the plunge.” Not that marriage stopped Nita from doing what she wanted.

“When Mukesh and I were seeing each other, he would pick me up in his Merc. One day, I asked him to see my mode of travel and we took a BEST bus.

I’m glad that my kids have also used public transport for their college trips. Life is about being aware of things around.”

Richest Indian woman or not, Nita still does the weekly hisaab of kitchen spends, a habit she learned from her mother-in-law. She’s famous for giving pep talks to her staff and is not referred to with the formal ‘madam’ or ‘Ms Ambani’, but with the very Indian bhabhi by her staff.

Her three kids, Akash, Isha and Anant, have been brought up to respect people, values and money. She laughs as she relates a funny incident that happened some years ago: “When my kids were still young, I’d give them Rs. 5 each every Friday to spend in the school canteen. One day,my youngest, Anant, came running into my bedroom and demanded he be given Rs. 10 instead. When I questioned him, he said his pals in school laughed whenever they saw him take out a five-rupee coin saying,‘Tu Ambani hai ya bhikari!’ Mukesh and I couldn’t help but crack up.”

As her kids — the twins, 19, and the younger son, aged 16 — are looking for their own niche, she says she’s ready to take on more. Her other family, IPL team Mumbai Indians, has also fared well this year. “I was really upset with Mukesh three years ago when he bought this franchise. My school had just started, Reliance Retail was fairly new, his other ventures were also in nascent stages and there he was, stepping into the totally fresh IPL field, when our plates were so full. Mukesh being a cricket enthusiast decided to go ahead and hand over the charge to professionals. I, of course, with zero knowledge of cricket barely attended a few matches in the first two seasons. For two years in a row, we were at the bottom of the table. It was the IPL 2 disasters in South Africa that spurred me to fly halfway across the globe to be with the boys. I selected the core team— Sachin, Bhajji and Zaheer— and we got to work on our weaknesses.”

From knowing nix about cricket to discussing the finer nuances of the offspin, Nita has had a testing two years. “I’m obsessive about things. So, after setting processes in place for the Mumbai Indians, I decided to accompany them on their punishing practice schedule too.”

When IPL season is on, she joins her team at the stadium around 2 pm, post a quick stop at the school. She watches the net practise, discusses details and only leaves after having dinner with the team.

“And as soon as I reach home, around 11 pm, I start making notes at a furious speed on what we could do better.”

Now that Mumbai Indians are fairly settled, she’s looking for more to do. “Next on my agenda is the hospital. It’s a 400-plus bed multi-speciality hospital.” Not to mention the Reliance University , an ambitious Navi Mumbai-based project, which Nita is all set to head. It will be a world-class university, where liberal arts will be given equal importance — as in, a Bharatanatyam scholar being treated at par with an electrical engineering student.

Which brings us back to her biggest passion in life: Bharatanatyam. “You know, dance is my first love, it’s my me-time. I practise every morning for at least 45 minutes. I’ve been dancing since the age of five, have represented my school and college in dancing competitions and I obviously can’t lose touch with it.”

Nita expresses her connection with Bharatanatyam, “Indian classical dance is sustained by a profound philosophy. Form seeks to merge with the formless, motions seek to become a part of the motionless, and the dancing individual seeks to become one with the eternal dance of the cosmos.”

It’s deep reasoning, yet it hasn’t convinced her daughter Isha into putting on the ghungroos. Isha is studying psychology, while Akash is an economics student. It’s obvious that she’s been a hands-on mum who insisted that husband Mukesh spend his Sundays helping with the kids’ homework. “I told him you may be busy influencing the future of Reliance and the country, but you better influence the future of your kids too. I believe that it’s not just quality but also the quantity of time spent with the kids that makes them sound individuals.”

She hopes she’s been bang-on at parenting, as she talks about how just the other day, her daughter shut off the television when a soap showed the protagonist talking about the futility of educating girls. “Isha and I get angry when we watch such things. Apart from negligence towards the girl child’s education, what also bothers me are the cases of female foeticide in the country.”

She relates a horrifying episode from her Jamnagar hospital days. “A man who already had three daughters, had another girl with a life-threatening ailment born to him. The cost of keeping the child in the incubator, even though subsidised, was too much for him and he asked the doctors to let him take the girl home. The doctors tried to stop him, even promised he won’t have to pay for the incubator, but he said it didn’t matter if his daughter died; she was only his fourth girl after all!”

It leaves her fuming, as she knows the value of being a mum. In fact, when asked what was the one door she couldn’t pry open despite her riches, connections and power, bang comes the reply: “Becoming a mother. A few years after I got married, I was told by the doctors that I would never have children. Even when I was in school, I would write long, copious essays titled, ‘When I’ll be a mother...’ Here I was at the age of 23 being told that I would never conceive. I was shattered. However, with the help of Dr Firuza Parikh, who is one of my closest friends, I first conceived my twins!”

But it was not exactly a cakewalk yet. Her pregnancy was traumatic and she delivered two months earlier in a state of medical emergency. It was her positivity that saw her through the tough times. Three years later, Anant was born naturally. Bliss prevailed.

Except for the excessive weight gain. From a light 47 kilos, Nita had gone straight to 90 kilos. “Everything was double magnified. I was so overjoyed at being a mum that I had let myself go.”

Till she decided to get back to dancing. She’s knocked the weight off with the help of one-and-a-half hours of daily exercise, oil and sugar-free food and small meals, making it easy for her to get back to a svelte 58 kilos.

What about Mukesh? “I’ve told him his love for batata wadas and street food needs to go,” she laughs as she tells me how not being a foodie has really helped her bring her weight down, even at the age of 47 and with a big business empire to manage.

As the interview draws to a close, she advises real women who constantly multitask: “As Indian women, we are always balancing work, life, home, etc. It’s important to know that while juggling rubber balls and glass balls, the former may bounce back when you miss, but the glass balls will crack if you let them fall. So prioritise, prioritise, prioritise.”

That, simply, in three straight bullet points is Nita’s power mantra!