Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, lauded the role of the British-Indian community in heralding a change in the nation's fabric.

"Tony's (Blair) emphasis throughout his tenure was to ensure that Britian becomes a truly multi-cultural nation. People from the Indian subcontinent in general and the Indian community in particular has played a huge role in changing UK into an all assimilating society," she said at a function in the capital to promote her autobiography 'Speaking For Myself', recalling how the Britain of the late 1970s was different from the one today, Blair cited her visiting a South Indian restaurant there accompanied by an Indian friend's father.

"Going by the glares of the people, I realised for the first time that my countrymen did not approve a white Britisher accompanying an Indian man," she said.

"I am glad things have changed for better," she added. Speaking about her book, that had raised a number of controversies at the time of its release, Blair, a renowned barrister, said it is not a political account, but the story of a woman in the backdrop of a transforming country. If you want to read a political account of my husband's policies and days as the prime minister, wait for his book," she said.

Blair, who has been associated with a number of philanthropic activities in India, said women in developing nations are today facing the same struggles that were faced by women of her mother's generation in receiving education and making a career for themselves.

"There was a drastic difference in the opportunities I had in receiving education and using it to make a career for myself than those my mother and grandmother had. The experiences of the women of my mother's generation in Britain and to some extent those of mine are the same that women here jave to go through," Blair said.

The book, was therefore, a saga of hope that change would soon come about here as it happened in UK, or for that matter Europe or the US not so long ago, she said citing struggles of women in the midst of poverty, honour killings, lack of opportunity and ostracism of widows.

Asked if she still nursed some unfulfilled ambitions, the mother of four, who has struck a remarkable balance between her professional and personal life, said "I will be on my deathbed with unfulfilled ambitions".

Helping women in this part of the world to achieve more economic independence and a better life was one of her ambitions, Blair said.