The Prince touches a chord at Cheshire Home

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: Zuleikha Abdul Latif, 70, suffers from backache, and on Wednesday a VVIP visitor to the Cheshire Home told her that he, too, was affected by the same ailment. <br /><br />As she explained her problem, the visitor patted her sympathetically on the shoulder and said, "I’m sure mine is not as bad as yours." It was only after the royal entourage left did Ms Latif realise that the "kind visitor" was the Prince of Wales. <br /><br />For other patients, who had also come for their medical check-up to Helpage India’s mobile van, Prince Charles was the ‘special mehman’ they had heard about. "Aap bataiye na woh kaun the (do tell me who he was)," Ms Latif urged mediapersons. <br /><br />The residents of the home, however, knew they were meeting Prince Charles. They had read in the morning papers about his meeting with Aamir Khan and Rani Mukherjee the previous day and wondered whether their pictures would appear with the prince the following day. Prince Charles chatted with the residents and shook hands with everyone. <br /><br />"How many grandchildren do you have?" he asked Saira Ansari, 78, who had come for her medical check-up. Seven, she answered. <br /><br />When he asked her, "Do they take care of you?" she promptly replied, "No." The prince spent an hour at the Cheshire Home, a shelter for the disabled and the aged, that nestles on Mahakali Caves Road in the bustling suburb of Andheri. <br /><br />It was the first Cheshire Home to be established outside the UK in 1954, noted Wilhelmine Ferreira, who is in charge of the home. "He was very impressed with the atmosphere of the home and said it was fresh and peaceful," she added. <br /><br />Ms Ferreira also gave the royal visitor the details of a community-based rehabilitation programme in the slums surrounding the home. <br /><br />John Thattil, regional director of Helpage India, told the prince about the organisation’s outreach programme carried out with the aid of its 52 mobile vans. <br /><br />The nuns from the Missionaries of Christ Jesus, Ahmedabad,who are at Cheshire Home for a training programme, welcomed him with a song. <br /><br />The media were kept at bay, but when photographers urged the prince to pose with the patients once more, he went back to Ms Ansari and shook her hand, murmuring apologetically, "I am sorry I have to do this again." <br /><br />Although the residents— most on wheelchairs —had waited for Prince Charles to arrive for over two hours, they did not complain. Ramesh Kriplani said he did not mind waiting at all, while Kashinath added, "We sit for long hours watching TV every day, so we can certainly wait for the prince." <br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Charles was initially unhappy with high-rise project</span><br /><br />Arputham Jockin, head of the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Slum Development International, practised Prince Charles’s tour route for over a month before the visit, only to find the prince throwing all protocol out of the window on Wednesday. <br /><br />Arputham, who was very impressed with the prince’s insistence on speaking to whomever he wanted, says Prince Charles was initially unhappy with the project. <br /><br />"When we were outside, he asked me why we had not gone in for low-rise housing, and I had to explain that it would not be possible to accommodate so many people otherwise," he said. <br /><br />Prince Charles, who takes an interest in architecture, is known to be averse to modern high-rises. According to Mr Jockin, "He asked one woman how she could sleep with her husband in such a cramped space." <br /><br />Prince Charles showed interest in getting his trust involved in similar projects. Just 234 families will be rehoused in this project, compared to Dharavi’s population of one million. <br /><br />Incidentally, the British government’s department of international development has contributed Rs 50 crore as start-up finance for this housing project, through the Community-led Infrastructure Finance Facility. <br /><br />While two buildings in this project have already been constructed, two remain to be completed and Prince Charles inaugurated one under construction.</div> </div>