‘Indian Masterminds’ highlights City Author's Persona

  •   Tue, Nov 04 2025
  •   By Ivan Saldanha-Shet

November 4, 2025

An exclusive summary version of a recent rare interview on ‘Indian Masterminds’ with Giselle Mehta (nee' Lobo Prabhu), Mangaluru's versatile author and persona with multiple facets - 'A role juggler' as she describes herself, and occupies a special niche when special personalities and mentors are needed to motivate and highlight premier marker occasions in the city and country. Daijiworld.com (Special) readers are fortunate to get a maiden glimpse of this interesting and erudite conversation on a prominent popular platform. Giselle is no stranger to our readers. It is a privilege to be called upon to adapt the interview here, with gratitude to Daijiworld.com. Let us go on directly to the conversation contents:

Giselle Mehta was invited to be a guest on the programme Indian Masterminds, which shines a spotlight on members of senior ranks of bureaucracy, past and present, with a focus on their achievements and activities. Bhakti Kothari interviewed her as having formerly belonged to the Indian Revenue Service.

Asked to describe herself in a single word, considering her multifaceted persona as a former IRS officer, author, composer and vegan advocate, Giselle Mehta said she sees herself as "A role juggler... In government, you function with these buzzwords of growth and progress with reference to programs and targets which subtly seep into personal life to motivate self-growth and versatility."

The interviewer sought to know the comparative difficulty of the UPSC exam and producing/writing a first novel. In Mehta's words "The UPSC exam is regarded as daunting in terms of its stringent selection procedures. Despite the exam’s vastness and diversity of subject matter, there are navigational tools like one's prior academic background and an abundance of study materials. I took only a year to prepare for the UPSC exam, whereas my first novel took me about seven or eight years. With creative writing, between one chapter and the next, you are in uncharted territory."

The decision to leave the prestige and security of a government position invariably invites questions. Mehta said her decision to leave service after a decade was about being around for ailing elders and obligations in family asset management, which was difficult in a transferable job. Her very first self-exploration foray has been in entrepreneurship in conjunction with her husband Dharmendra Mehta; creative writing came somewhat later.

Regarding her debut novel, Blossom Showers she said that Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gone with the Wind which she read as a college student left a lasting impression. Set on a cotton plantation during the American Civil War in the 19th century, it sparked the idea to set a story amidst the coffee plantations of Karnataka. The novels of Somerset Maugham also left her with an urge to write with emotional intensity and depth of character.

The interviewer found it interesting that Giselle Mehta's second novel Vectors in the Void unusually merged events in world history with those of Indian Independence and Partition. Concurring with the unique nature of this convergence, Mehta said this was a backdrop against which the dramas of family life play out. The novel deftly ties together disconnected geographies, races and places, events and elements.

As someone who also holds the prestigious credential of being an Associate of Trinity College London (ATCL) in Speech and Drama, she said that the ATCL was something she accomplished not in her youth, but in midlife. She was completely self-taught, channelling her love of literature in portraying roles from plays of Shakespeare and of ancient Greek drama. The experience spilled over into her fiction writing because drama gives one a sense of pacing that moves plots, and in getting into the skin of characters one learns to craft credible fictional people.

The interviewer was also curious about the origins of her vegan advocacy, where Mehta enjoys the renown of being a global changemaker. She replied, "Curiously enough, it connects back with my novel Blossom Showers, where the Chief Guests at my book launch event in Hyderabad were the famous actor couple Nagarjuna and Amala. Amala was especially known for her advocacy for animals. Sometime later when I was checking out the coverage for the event, Google simultaneously threw up a 21 days' Vegan Challenge being endorsed by Amala for PETA. Roughly around the same time one was grappling with an issue that didn’t feel fair to a family that was charitable to both humans and non-humans. With the perspective of the 21 days' challenge which had by then reached me, I was struck with the realisation that one's problems could often be the result of pain that one is unconsciously inflicting through diet and consumption choices. I am glad to say that the particular problem also cleared up with the action to be vegan from this powerful personal truth."

Interviewer, Kothari was keen to know common misconceptions about veganism. Mehta clarified that unlike in the past, where everything had to be, 'do it yourself', whether it was milk, yoghurt, cheese, sweets et cetera, the situation today is a vibrant vegan marketplace with availability of alternative dairy products and mock meats that are plant-based; one often has a problem of choice between brands. There are also alternatives to animal leather that are based in pineapple, banana, coconut and other innovative materials. It requires people to approach these products with an adventurous mindset and draw on their reserves of empathy to make compassionate choices.

Touching on Mehta's concurrent animal welfare work, which ranges from helping out with elephants in Africa to street animals in India. Asked for a count on what would be the numbers of those helped, Mehta said she could not furnish a precise number, but it could run into thousands. This is because of the wards she has instituted in the animal shelter in her city as also the continuing help that she gives animal rescuers and feeders all over the country. The act of veganism also saves countless animal lives through abstention in consumption.

Detailing a day in her creative life, Mehta said she has her obligations as an entrepreneur which are constant and complex. The literary aspect of her persona necessarily involves writing, editing and research. Other creative manifestations could be a tune that wants to emerge, new vegan dishes and desserts that she invents, fashioning apparel from handloom fabric, repurposing antiques...She could be involved in altruistic actions and advocacies, speaking engagements on different subjects and the fascinations of travel. To be creative is to be unstructured. Each day is a new one with its own stimulations.

 

 

 
By Ivan Saldanha-Shet
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