Dr Bharat Pathak, Chairman, Lion Tarachand Bapa Hospital and Research Centre; hon secretary, Seva Mandal Education Society |
Zarna Somaia has supported causes ranging from education to health and relief work
Back in Mumbai from Australia to attend a niece’s wedding six years ago, Zarna Somaia had to be hospitalised after a seizure. When she returned home, she sat her family down and said she wanted all of her personal wealth to be donated to various charitable causes.
“So all of mum’s wealth is being given to charity during her lifetime,” said Lina Ashar, Zarna’s daughter and founder of Kangaroo Kids and Dreamtime Learning.
Zarna, now 86, is today a major donor to a range of initiatives — hospitals, social initiatives, educational initiatives, and more — through the Zarna & Anil Somaia Family Foundation. Her income from the family’s businesses are directly received by the foundation.
Among those she has supported are a hospital run in the name of the Dalai Lama, various schools and a social enterprise named Angel Xpress, a set of mobile STEM laboratories in Dharavi, the Lion’s Club and more.
She was never into jewellery or expensive purchases, and had always lived a modest lifestyle, said Ashar, adding that as children she and her siblings had learnt from their mother to enjoy minimalism and give back at least 10% of all their earnings to charity. “She taught us that buying, hoarding, owning and receiving bring short-term spikes of the happiness chemical, but the act of giving releases serotonin in a way that brings sustainable, lasting joy,” she said.
Zarna is the first investor in Dreamtime Learning, an educational venture to give students relevant learning experiences, to discover their true passions and to love learning. All equity and profits from this initiative will go towards teaching children who cannot afford an education, specifically towards exposing them to foreign education.
The Somaias’ textile business in Australia also started Simba Conscious, to acknowledge the textile industry’s history of poor labour and environmental practices, and through this initiative also decided to educate the children of workers in their Indian manufacturing units, with the objective of lifting the next generation out of hard labour.
In Australia, Zarna took up Buddhism and one day decided to give up her home to the Buddhist community. She also donated to a fund for education and relief work set up by Nepalese social activist Ani Choying Drolma, also known as ‘the singing nun’.
Despite her challenging growing-up years, Zarna was always helping people in need, Ashar remembered, whether it was friends or strangers. “Growing up, I watched her with a lot of awe.”
