The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : French love for Indian soil

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 21, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

French love for Indian soil

Suresh Krishnamoorthy

Dalel Benbabaali is pursuing research in social sciences and plans to marry an Indian IAS officer

- Photo: Mohd Yousuf

NAMASTE: Dalel Benbabaali greeting TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu at NTR Trust Bhavan in Hyderabad on Saturday.

HYDERABAD: From the shores of Algeria, born and bred in Paris, the heart of France, she is almost on the point of becoming an Indian citizen.

Primarily a French language instructor, Dalel Benbabaali is a multi-faceted personality. For someone so young, she speaks five languages - French, English, German, Arabic, Spanish, fluently, not to mention her comfort levels with Hindi and Telugu too!

A student of the prestigious L’Ecole Normale Superior in Paris and now a research scholar in social sciences, she is here on an exchange scholarship programme from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. And the title of her research paper is ‘Migration and upward social mobility in Andhra Pradesh’.

Dalel’s tryst with India started in 2003, as a French instructor at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Administration in Mussourie. The year opened her heart to India. “Interacting with academically-brilliant people from every State in this great nation was a fantastic experience”, she says.

A part of her heart also went to a citizen here. “Yes, I am in love with an IAS officer and hope to marry him soon”, she says, dipping her eyelashes, shyly. She came back to India twice before spending another year here, pursuing her Ph.D.

Research data

She is unwilling to give out details of her year-long research but shared a few points. She has collected details, a sort of demographic profile of 100 households in Godavarru village in Kankipadu Assembly constituency of Krishna district and another 100 in Kukatpally on the outskirts of the State capital.

While 20 per cent of households in Godavaru have at least one member in the USA, 80 per cent of settlers in Kukatpally are in the real estate business. “I have more information but I have to start putting it all on paper”, Dalel says, before signing off.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh