Right about the time that my EK 700 jet is winging its way from Mumbai to Amman in Jordan, for an interview with Her Majesty, Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, the young queen is on a tour of the Jordan River Foundation's Queen Rania Family and Child Centre, on World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse. Accompanied by Urmila Nandey Nathan, First Lady of Singapore, she toured this facility which, together with India's Tulir Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, received the 2006 Prevention of Child Abuse Prize by the Geneva-based Women's World Summit Foundation. Jordan's hands-on monarch was not on an unusual mission, at all. She was merely playing out her self-appointed role of benefactor to the downtrodden, the weaker sections of society and the nongovernmental sector.

I, of course, was unaware of the royal schedule as I landed on a chilly afternoon in the Jordanian capital. This bit of news arrived early the next morning on a silver salver in the form of The Jordan Times placed next to my cup of steaming hot tea in a classic Rosenthal white-and-gold teacup embossed with the royal crest, as I awaited my call to interview, in a room that spelt modern Scandinavian meets contemporary Oriental. Clean white interiors, polished marble flooring with uncluttered mosaic touches, innately comfortable white and black sofas, a table covered in black leather, balanced great wooden doors inlaid with brass and amazingly high ceilings. Earlier, an official car had swept me clean across the desert city, up a sloping hill affording a fabulous city view, past guards in full regalia and to this complex of office buildings constructed in the ubiquitous and beautiful white desert stone of the area, seemingly fortressed behind a wall of stone. With poetic dichotomy, almost, the interiors are modern, simplistic, minimalistic and impactful with miniature orange trees and white daisies nodding in the bright sun, in courtyards of paved stone.

In these, her personal offices, the queen has surrounded herself, (making a socio-statement of sorts?) with smart young women, impeccably dressed in dark business skirts and power trouser suits, destroying every stereotype and preconceived notion that I may have formed of the Arab woman. (I am immediately at home in my Narendra Kumar black linen suit that provides fit and comfort.) The Arab woman, I perceive, is not as oppressed as one may have imagined, though she may not be quite where she wants to be. Here in Amman, more women are entering the workplace and it is likely that, mainly due to the influence of their queen, a new generation of forward thinking women may take the area by storm.

An observation made by Lama Nabulsi, director of media and communications, stays with me for days after: "Here I am balancing a job and one son and Her Majesty has four children and helps the entire country. I don't know how she does it. She certainly is a role model for Jordanian women." Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan, in the process of breaking most stereotypes, has cast herself in a mould that has captured the fancy and imagination of the world. This is a modern monarch, an icon of contemporary style and a committed woman and mother, I am to discover.

During a quick cab ride across town, the Palestinian driver who sports an impressive scar across his face, informs me that the people love Queen Rania as much as the beloved Queen Noor. He divulges that the people of Jordan can meet anytime with King Abdullah II, with an appointment, if they have a grievance. "I met him just last week," he maintains, to make a point. Though there will invariably be dissenters who will not approve of Rania's unconventional views. I am told that she sweeps regularly through the city without much ado in her car with one pilot car following. There is perhaps a sense of identification since she comes from the people. Her father, a Palestinian, fled the West Bank town of Tulkarm when Israel captured the territory in 1967. She was born in Kuwait, August 31, 1970, to a notable Jordanian family of Palestinian origin. She studied at the New English School in Kuwait City and then at the American University in Cairo where she graduated with a business degree. A brief stint with Citibank was followed by a marketing position with Apple Computers when a chance outing with a co-worker led her to a dinner party hosted by Prince Abdullah's sister, where she met the prince and in a fairy-tale romance was married just five months later.