Simply Sonya

Sonya Jehan is radiant. The world knows her as a half-Pakistani Indian actress and we are quite happy with rights on her being just that. Born as the legendary Madam Noor Jehan’s granddaughter to a Pakistani father (Akbar Rizvi) and French mother (Florence Villier), she is now married to an Indian banker (Vivek Narain) and is shifting homes from Delhi to Mumbai as we speak. And of all the traits she carries in her genes — fame, France, a penchant for performance, a love for food and simple elegance — the Pakistani gene is the most dormant. She speaks Urdu, but often chooses not to and when English and French roll off her tongue much more easily, you could never guess that she was anything but French. The give-away, if any, is her offhand sense of style, which lends her originality beyond Noor Jehan’s opulence and her mother’s French chic. These are the two women — both of whom have incredible individual identities — who have had the maximum influence on her personality but Sonya has emerged very much her own person. She has a deep, melodic voice that is trained to sing like Daado (as she fondly calls Noor Jehan) and she has a love for food like her mother (who lives in Karachi and owns the only French restaurant in town).