IF ANYONE HAS led a truly multicultural life, it would be Lubna Jumabhoy. The longtime resident of Penang is a global citizen in every sense of the phrase.

Born in Bombay and growing up in Karachi before moving to Malaysia (then Malaya), she is a teacher of the Japanese floral art ikebana, and is France’s representative in Penang. Lubna’s life has been a borderless one that has witnessed important events of the 20th century, like the founding of India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore as modern nation-states.

The retired octogenarian has lived a varied life as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, teacher, artist and diplomat; she is proof that one need not be born in Penang to contribute to its betterment, which she has done for the past 60 years.

Childhood In British India

Lubna was born in 1937 in Bombay (Mumbai) to Muslim parents, Nazer and Kamartaj Mooraj. Her family had originally been from Kutch in the western state of Gujarat. In 1947, when India gained independence, her family relocated to Karachi in Pakistan, settling on Britto Road.

As the eldest of four children, Lubna remembers standing in line waiting for the founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s cortege to pass by—he died a year after the nation’s inception.

Her childhood in Karachi was a happy and active one; she fondly recalls her schooling years at St. Joseph’s Convent as a prefect and girl guide, and living next to the school—therefore able to jump over the wall to attend classes.

At age 17, she went to Sir J.J. School of Arts in Mumbai for art classes while waiting to study architecture in London. However, after meeting her future husband Mustafa Jumabhoy there, her plans changed, and two years later they were married. Aged 19, she set off for Singapore, where his family lived, and ran R. Jumabhoy & Sons.

A year later, the young couple was tasked to run the liner and cargo shipping business in Penang. That was how they ended up on the island in April 1957.

Moving To Malaya

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s,the Jumabhoys shuttled between Penang, Singapore, Karachi and Mumbai. In Penang, they moved from Caunter Hall to Green Hall and then to Jesselton Heights, where they still live today. Their residence would go on to host global dignitaries after Lubna took on the role of France’s Consul-General.

But before the age of 40, she had put her family first, raising three sons Anwar, Faez and Saleem, while travelling extensively with the family. But she was not one for a domesticated life occupied solely by housework and cooking.

The artist and the extrovert in her had been springing up over the years, with stints in modelling (“I had to carry a baby to promote an infant formula”), and learning ikebana from the late Kazue Kim, who started the Sogetsu school of ikebana in Singapore in 1966.

It was ikebana that led her to an even more active social life. She co-founded the Penang Sogetsu Association and became its vice-president, organising charity drives and teaching the art in Penang, KL and Karachi after qualifying as a Grade A instructor. This she faithfully did until 1982, when she stopped to focus on being Consul-General.

Representing France In Malaysia

In 1978, she was appointed France’s first female honorary consul in Penang, taking over from British national, J.S.H. Cunyngham-Brown. Besides the embassy in KL, France has three Honorary Consuls—in Penang, Kuching and Penampang. An honorary consul’s job is to assist French citizens and foster diplomatic, cultural and economic ties in their designated region.

“The opportunity with the consulate came at the right time when I needed to do something for myself,” recalls Lubna. “My children had all grown up, and I didn’t want to just be someone’s wife, mother or daughter, but my own person.” It was Cunyngham-Brown who asked her to join Alliance Francaise to learn the French language in 1972.

She quickly immersed herself in French culture, taking cooking lessons and picking up French again, having learnt the language from the St. Joseph nuns of her childhood and being an active member in Alliance Française.

The job fitted her well, as it entailed courtesy calls, hosting Hari Raya and French National Day events, arranging business meetings, and solving tourist problems, like visas and medical emergencies. “There were 12 or so honorary consuls living in Penang at the time, and I was the only female,” she says, recalling meeting Princess Margaret, Fidel Castro and David Marshall. Decades later, she would be honoured with France’s L’ordre national du Mérite in 1992 and Légiond’ Honneur in 2003.

Transcending Time and Geography

“It has been a very rewarding 30 years,” says Lubna, who retired from her diplomatic career in 2008 at age 70. The Penang State awarded her an Honorary Datukship in 2004, as she and her husband had mooted for Little India’s creation in the 1960s and had funded the Datuk Mustafa Jumabhoy Scholarship for Universiti Sains Malaysia(USM) students since the ‘90s.

With three children, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, Lubna has led a fulfilling life. As a British national who grew up in India and Pakistan, and a faithful Muslim educated in Christian missionary schools, she only asks that the younger generation to “be united and don’t squabble”.

In her free time, she now goes back to her love of art; her Jesselton home is decorated with her ikebana, glass paintings, copper tooling, jewellery designs and mosaic pieces. She is currently crocheting a bedcover for her youngest great-grandchild, and keeps in touch daily with her sister in Karachi.

Lubna’s life has been one that transcends nationalities, languages and cultures. She is indeed a citizen of the world, with Penang as her home and in her heart.