Some more Masaba, please!
How to turn adversity into advantage is something our stunning cover star seems to have mastered
At an HT Brunch shoot with Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings last year, Masaba Gupta was one of five film personalities chosen for a special cover story: each of the five stars had to put two questions to the most powerful film producer in the world.
Masaba, fresh off the success of Masaba Masaba, the semiautobiographical, semi-fictional Netflix show based loosely on her life, asked him this: “If you were to have a series on your life, what would be included, what would not?”
Reed’s answer is irrelevant, but Masaba’s next question is not: “I’m not a trained actor,” she said, sans any insecurities. “How important is it to take chances?”
I watched her from a distance as she asked these questions. She was being provocative, yet polite, self-critical and secure in her skin. These are not qualities that would come easily to anyone who hasn’t lived the life Masaba has.
Born to an unwed mother, actor Neena Gupta out of an affair with cricketing legend Vivian Richards, her story is unique in many ways. Can you imagine a young Masaba and the snarky comments she must have faced at school? Not only did a regressive society raise irrelevant questions, Masaba’s distinctive looks must have brought her unwanted attention. Think of the turmoil experienced by a young girl trying to fit in!
Our cover story today
tracks the life and times of Masaba Gupta. Whether the jibes left her hardened or occasionally broke her resolve, she went on to become her own person. She first proved herself as a fashion designer, then transitioned to following the profession her mother is a master at. Earlier this year, she made her debut as an all-out actor, playing the part of a young single landscape designer living in Mumbai. Paired opposite Ritwick Bhowmick in Modern Love Mumbai, Masaba stood her own, and shone!
In times of insecurities born out of a dearth of social media likes, how did this young woman take on a cruel world and win it? How did she turn adversity into advantage and chart out a path nobody has taken before?
Over to Masaba Gupta on Page 7 for some great life lessons and loads of inspiration for every little girl and boy who doubts whether they even have a future!
Also in this issue: Luke Coutinho picks out grandmother’s tales and classifies them as fact or fiction. Nikhil Taneja makes a case for comedians in a super-sensitive world. And, on the 25th anniversary of the publishing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, a millennial and a Gen-Z writer argue whether they prefer reading Harry Potter books or watching the stories on the big screen.
Life is full of perplexing problems, and we must know how to successfully cast a Patronus charm. #iykyk
“CAN YOU IMAGINE A YOUNG MASABA AND THE SNARKY COMMENTS SHE MUST HAVE FACED AT SCHOOL?”