Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s 98-year-old daughter Dina Wadia breathed her last breath at her home in New York and the funeral will take place in New York on Friday. She is survived by her son and Wadia Group Chairman Nusli N. Wadia, daughter Diana N. Wadia, grandsons Ness and Jeh Wadia, Jeh's wife Celina and two great-grandchildren Jah and Ella Wadia.
I speak to my mother once a day every day no matter where I am... I don't think there is any mother-son relationship in the world as close as ours."
Nusli to TOI in 2008.
Dina was estranged with her father when she decided to marry a Parsi Neville Wadia, who had built the famous Cusrow Baug in Colaba and Jer Baug and Rustom Baug in Byculla. He was the only son of Sir Ness and Lady Wadia, in a ceremony at All Saint's Church on Malabar Hill, on November 16, 1938. However, their marriage did not last and then she moved to NewYork and stayed there for the rest of her life.
Before Jinnah died in September 1948, his relationship with Dina was beyond repairs. Jinnah despised her so much that he refused a visa when she wanted to visit Pakistan to see him when he was critically ill. She got to visit Pakistan only after his funeral and after 56 years she visited Pakistan, in 2004.
As per the report published in Quartz, Mahommedali Currim Chagla, a former Jinnah aide, wrote in his autobiography Roses in December:
Jinnah asked Dina
There are millions of Muslim boys in India, is he the only one you were waiting for?” and Dina replied, “There were millions of Muslim girls in India, why did you marry my mother then?”
Jinnah had married a Parsi woman named Rattanbai Petit, or Ruttie who after turning 18 eloped with a 42-year-old Jinnah. Their marriage created a scandal in the genteel society of 1900’s Bombay.
Instead, she stayed in India and married a Parsi and had two children. One of them went on to become the 25th richest Indian and the patriarch of one of the country’s oldest and best-known textile companies.
Dina Wadia was born on the intervening night of August and 15, 1919 and was raised in London and Mumbai.
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