In her ‘BC’ life, (‘Before Children’, as Shilpa Mehta likes
to term it), she has scaled cliffs looking for birds’ nests, gone into
volcanoes, flown into virgin rainforests in helicopters to meet tribes in the Philippines,
gone scuba diving, and done much more. As a part of her ‘dream job’ of being
the presenter of a TV show with ‘Lonely Planet’ (which was a travel show on
Discovery Channel then) Mehta has travelled continents and lived a life that is
easy to envy. But that was more than 10 years ago. Now, Mehta is a changed
woman and the change, according to her, is the best thing that could happen to
anyone.
Post kick-starting her media career with BBC radio in the
UK, where Shilpa was trained as a journalist/features reporter and producer,
Shilpa grew to become a TV show presenter with ‘Lonely Planet’. Mehta calls it
a very exciting time in her life: “You would just get a phone call saying
‘you’re going to Kenya’, ‘you’re going to Egypt…’ you just never knew where
you’d be going next. The kind of access that we had was incredible. It was not
the kind of presenting where you just sit in the hotel swimming pool and drink
a cocktail. It was a very fast paced life where I was travelling a lot and
around 30 million people watched my programme.”
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This was till 2002. And in 2004, Mehta welcomed her
daughter, India-Fire, into this world and everything changed.
Mehta shares the details: “When my daughter was 2, my film
producer (now ex husband) was going to go travelling around the world for a
film shoot, and I was going to be left at home with a tiny toddler on a long
dark grey English winter. This is when a friend suggested that I go to Goa. We
usually don’t take advice but in that moment, I did. I just packed my house,
rented it out, put my baby on my hip and came to Goa. It has been an amazing
part of our journey. When I came here, I reinvented myself, as you do when you
become a mother.”
Mehta had unknowingly made a connection with her new place
and according to her, it just kept bringing her to Goa all the time. She
started to see opportunities for businesses in Goa, whilst continuing to
shuttle between the UK and Goa. But when in England, India-Fire was going to a
Montessori school and Mehta participated in a school campaign that sought
funding for the school from the government. That was her first brush with the
education space. Mehta says, “When I got back to India, I was still in the
‘setting up schools’ kind of mode and then the school that India-Fire was going
to, was collapsing. So I set up a new school.”
To cater to the needs of her daughter, Mehta set-up a
primary school by the name of Paradise School Goa in Talpona in the
southernmost part of Goa, a few years ago. But now, with her daughter feeling the
need to go to a secondary school, Mehta did the next big thing – set up a
secondary school, but this time in the Northern part of Goa, in Aldona.
Looking back, Mehta calls herself ‘an assembler of a
gigantic complex jigsaw who is putting all the pieces together’. Speaking about
the biggest change in her life, Mehta says, “I found the greatest love of all
and that is my daughter. She has totally led this journey for me. I think
before, I thought I was in charge. Since having become a mother, our relationship
has been in charge. It has made me a much bigger dimensional person than ever
before.”
I think women can create a really amazing life after
divorce/separation. It is not the end of the world. On the contrary, I think it
is a moment of transformation/reinvention where you can really be ‘you’ on
another level. Where there is a way, there is a woman. I don’t think being a
woman on your own with a child makes you a victim; I think it makes you more
powerful than anyone else!”
