Nita Ambani - woman with a middle class heart

She has been famously described by her husband as "Reliance's real programme manager", even though she does not hold any official position in any of the Reliance group companies.

Observers say they wouldn't be surprised if East India Hotels Chairman P R S Oberoi also begins to describe Nita Ambani as the "real programme manager" of the Oberoi and Trident group of hotels.

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For the moment, the Ambanis as well as Oberois are downplaying Nita's induction as a non-executive director of EIH where Mukesh picked up 14 per cent stake last year as a kind of white knight.

Nita has also made all the right noises to downplay her first formal corporate role by saying it's an honour for her to be part of EIH and that RIL was a long-term financial investor and was not seeking to run the company.

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While her doting husband would be proud of that script, most analysts believe Nita's inclusion on the EIH board suggests RIL is now prepared to play a larger role in the hospitality business.

And those who know Nita well say she would make sure that her role in EIH goes much beyond what her designation suggests, as she doesn't believe in an ornamental role.

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"Right now, I am in a learning mode with Mr Oberoi," the 48-year-old Nita said during her interaction with reporters after EIH's board meeting last Monday.

She had said roughly the same things when her husband bought Mumbai Indians three years ago, and put professionals in charge.

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She was initially not in favour of her husband's foray into cricket but got into the "learning mode" for the first two years when Mumbai Indians found themselves at the bottom of the table.

But the IPL 2 disasters in South Africa spurred her to fly halfway across the globe to take charge of the team.

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She also became a permanent fixture in all team meetings and even auctions (with her son Akash). It may be coincidence or pure good luck, but the fortunes of Mumbai Indians have since soared - the team won the Champions League this year.

Her well-wishers of course attribute this to her "amazing leadership skills" and her ability to "bond with the boys".

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But life is hardly just fun and games for Nita Ambani.

She works almost as hard as her husband, juggling life between running the Dhirubhai Ambani International School (where she is present before the school opens), heading the Dhirubhai Ambani Foundation, a non-profit organisation primarily devoted towards the promotion education and health care services and spearheading Project Drishti with a vision to give free-of-cost treatment to the blind.

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Next on her agenda is a 400-plus bed multi-specialty hospital, and Reliance University, an ambitious project in Navi Mumbai.

Her growing public appearances can perhaps be attributed to the fact that two of her three children, Akash and Isha, have gone abroad for studies giving her that much extra time - at least enough to appear on the covers of countless fashion magazines.

To her credit, Nita Ambani has never shied away from publicly discussing her private life - a trait diametrically opposite to her reticent husband.

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Courtesy her outspokenness, we all know how Mukesh refused to start the car till she said yes to his proposal for marriage on Mumbai's super-busy Peddar Road; how doctors had first told her she would never have children and how the same doctors helped her have her first children (twins) almost eight years after marria#8805 how she helped her youngest child, Anant, to fight obesity (in the process losing 25 kgs herself); how she is still a quintessential middle-class housewife at home doing weekly hisaabs of kitchen spends, a trait she claims she got from her mother-in-law; and how she went shopping for 25,000 pieces of high-end Japanese crockery for her Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) home in Mumbai where the family moved in last week. (She sourced it from a Noritake store in Sri Lanka where it was far cheaper).

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The wife of India's richest man is determined to make us believe that the Ambani family is nothing but a bunch of middle class people - at least at heart.