Parmeshwar Godrej, noted philanthropist, businesswoman and wife of Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej has passed away. She was 71. She breathed her last at Mumbai's Breach Candy hospital on Monday night following a degenerative lung disease.

Parmeshwar Godrej was an iconic figure in both business and society, as she led various philanthropic initiatives, especially those to promote awareness about HIV-Aids.

She roped in Hollywood icon Richard Gere for the Heroes Project, which later received support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. She was consulted by the Harvard School of Public Health, which plans to help and partner with her project in India.

She was handpicked by Alicia Keys and Leigh Blake through President Clinton's Global initiative to work on numerous philanthropic projects in India.

In one of its lists of powerful people, India Today called her an intrepid collector of the world's prettiest powerful people and the social arbiter in chief. She was also active in deciding the aesthetic and design aspects of various products of the Godrej group, particularly in realty projects and consumer products.

She had teamed up with acclaimed director Shekhar Kapur to launch a production house called Starlight in 2000, which was preceded by co-producing the Merchant-Ivory production The Perfect Murder in 1988.



Not just the glamour world, her network of friends were from diverse fields and in a recent book, nobel laureate Amartya Sen had spoken richly about her, calling Parmeshwar a "brilliant conversationalist" and "wonderful company".



The Business Today magazine once described her as the epitome of uber chic: Rich, beautiful, phenomenally networked, but most of all sophisticated and caring.



Actor Shabana Azmi said Parmeshwar Godrej was more than the sum of her parts. "She was warm, generous and almost childlike under that starry sharp businesswoman exterior."

She was working with Air-India as one of the first air-hostesses when she married Adi Godrej. She also designed clothes for Hema Malini when Feroze Khan appointed her to decide Hema's looks in the film Dharmatma.

She is survived by her husband Adi and three children, daughters Nisa and Tanya Dubash, and son Pirojsha.

Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan said, "Devastated by death of close friend, Parmeshwar Godrej, last night. She was always there for me in my most difficult times."



