Dad Would Never Have Approved of IPL Says Vivian Richards Daughter Masaba Gupta

India's first celebrity lovechild, Masaba Gupta, claims that while on tour, dad Vivian Richards would crash by nine every night

Photograph: Masaba Gupta, Daughter of Sir Vivian Richards and Neena Gupta

In the glitzy din of the Regal Room at the Trident, which was hosting the IPL after party and a fashion show by Rocky S, Late into the Night India’s first celebrity lovechild, Masaba, made a wary entry in an electric blue dress, accompanied by a fashion designer friend Nishka Lulla. But there was no missing the guarded aura and the irony - Masaba was after all India’s first love child, the product of a stormy affair between West Indian cricketer Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards and veteran Indian television actress Neena Gupta.

Yet, for all her cricket pedigree, the young fashion designer was disapproving of cricket Matches in its present avatar, the IPL. “I am not very comfortable with this side of cricket, this new version of it. I know I am in no position to speak for my parents, and I rarely do, but I know for a fact that dad would never have approved of this. In his time, cricket was a lot more conscientious, a lot more principled. How do these players perform if they party so hard? When dad went on tours, he tells me that all players would be in bed by 9 pm sharp, every night, for as long as the tour lasted. I think it was a matter of principle. So this is new to me.”

As for herself, Masaba claimed she was not comfortable with the vibe she was getting from the over-glamorised IPL, but she stuck to her stand: “I am only here to support my friend Rocky S, because I have always admired his creativity. I do get awkward with weird men who keep staring at me, but I don’t let that bother me, because ultimately I am merely here to celebrate my friend’s fashion show since I too am from the field,” said Masaba.

Speaking of her mother, Masaba added, “Mom is happy. She’s flitting between Delhi and Mumbai now that she is married to a chartered accountant based out of Delhi. I am settling into my fashion designing. On the whole, life goes on.” Masaba, who graduated in fashion design from SNDT, recently debuted at the Lakme Fashion Week 2010. This was her first IPL sighting.

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Masaba Gupta, India’s first celebrity love child, has had to sprint many races before finding a voice. A successful streak with fashion is helping her dress up the future, notes Sudipta Basu

Masaba with a model at the recent fashion week

There used to be an early morning ritual at actress Neena Gupta's house before Masaba was sent off to school. Neena and the house maid would spend precious moments bunching up the young schoolgirl's bushy hair as she yelped and fretted, breakfast egg hanging to her lips. The hair was just one of the few things that she hated at the time; eventually she was to face some predictable road bumps that her unconventional parents had prepared her for in their own way. Their wisdom made little sense to her at the time, but was filed away to be referenced in future. As the 21-year-old took a bow after her presentation at the Gen-Next section of the recently-concluded fashion week, dressed in a bright red dhoti and a black and white jacket, a wild bunch of curls framing her café au lait face, one knew that both Neena and Masaba had made confident strides into the future. She was adjudged the winner and awarded a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh by the Inter National Institute of Fashion Design. As she goes about arranging her line of clothing, titled Masaba, at Amara, a fashion store in Mumbai, the final year student at SNDT observes that this is for keeps for the next ten years or so. "Masaba is lucky that she has been able to make up her mind about the future so soon; most of us just go through the motions till we are 40 only to realise that we could have done something else much better," says her mother Neena Gupta. "I think I would have made a very good IAS officer." Masaba used to be a state level tennis player, has dabbled in music (blues, country) and dance (Shiamak Davar), before setting her mind on design. She spent three months in London learning music, but had to return when Neena found out that they had actually faulted on researching the right institute and all she was getting was part-time training. "She was alone and not learning much, but she is an introvert and didn’t want to suggest that all the money that was being spent on her was going waste. I called her back only when I realised how unhappy she was," says Neena. She returned, went along with a friend to SNDT and signed up for the course not knowing where it would lead her. It helped that she takes after her mother, and has a keen sense of design.

LEARNING TO COPE

Masaba has been used to the unpreparedness of sudden turns of fate. As a child born out of wedlock to Neena Gupta and cricketer Vivian Richards, she has always been an object of curiosity. Neena did not sit her down for a heart to heart, she simply chose to tell her the truth; and that was that. In one of her ruminations (she often puts down her thoughts in a diary) she says: "My mother is white, my father is black. They call me half caste or whatever, well I don't dip on anybody's side. I don't dip on either side. I dip on God's side; the one who created me and caused me to come from black and white."

Masaba displaying her designs at Amara

"I was born out of a pure relationship. People do not think much of adultery within marriage. So why do they question this? I have learnt to take it from this ear and out of the other," she says gesticulating.

Till about some years ago Neena and Viv tried to work it out, eventually deciding to go their separate ways. Masaba speaks to her father now and then, but has tutored herself to "become indifferent to what is not there, to people who have gone by". "There is no malice in her," says Neena. "I have explained that that's just the sort of person Viv is. Look around you, no one's life is full. And yet, you are very privileged."

With mother Neena Gupta

Neena once said that the course of her life was determined by relationships. Does Masaba feel likewise? "You should never make any relationship in your life a priority because then you lose track of who you are. I have learnt not to trust anyone. I have but one friend. I have seen a lot in life, a lot of fake people. You have to be very careful," says Masaba, who is close to her stepfather Vivek Mehra’s nieces and nephews.

THE VIV YOU DIDN’T KNOW

Back in the day when Viv was around, a young Masaba would often be startled by his observations about her friends. He would point out that not many would last a lifetime, and that she should not trust very easily. It was almost like a prophecy; only one person from that group is still a friend; you'll see, you'll learn, he said at the time. "I have never seen my father cry, except once when he heard on TV that his friend Malcolm Marshall had passed away. He told me then that he had lost his only friend, and that Marshall loved him for the person that he was, not because he was a celebrity," she says.

Once when he was seven in Antigua, Viv returned home weeping, his face bruised after a white boy had hurled a stone at him. His stern father, a jailer and previously a slave himself, told him never to break down in front of a white man, for they do not know the real strength of a black man. "When I recalled this story much later, I realised that he was actually preparing me for the future."

She admits that she grew up not sure of who she was, at odds with an athletic body, a mass of curls and a heavily acnaed face. "Boys never looked at me. I was always one of them," she laughs. "It is only much later that I realized that people pay loads of money to get my kind of hair and go hard at gyms to build muscles. I have never had to do any of that," she says. "I was told how huge my backside is, how curly my hair is or why I dance so damn well. I am truly the best of both cultures. I understand myself much better now." To quote from her casual autobiographical essay, off the diary: "When your coffee is too strong, you put some cream to make it weak. But if you pour too much you'll never know you had coffee. It's important to be black, or you'll never know strength."

Masaba - Vivian Richards and Neena Gupta's Daughter

It is a well known fact that Neena Gupta had a brief affair with former West Indian cricketer Vivian Richards, with whom she has a daughter, Masaba. Here is a Picture of Masaba with Mom Neena Gupta. Masaba was born in 1989.










Neena Gupta married Delhi based Vivek Mehra, a chartered accountant working in a commerce firm on July 15, 2008 in the US.

Seen in Picture are: Vivek Mehra, Neena’s daughter Masaba and Neena Gupta, after the Neena-Vivek wedding ceremony

‘Masaba Is In Touch With Her Father Viv Richards’ - Neena Gupta

Vivek Mehra, Neena’s daughter Masaba and Neena Gupta, after the Neena-Vivek wedding ceremony

After decades of solitude, actress-director Neena Gupta has finally found marital bliss with Vivek Mehra, a partner at PriceWaterHouse-Coopers. However, Neena's new-found happiness is clouded what with Neena's daughter Masaba refusing to move into Neena's new household. Apparently, 19-year-old Masaba, who's as self-willed as her mother, has made it clear to her mother, in no uncertain terms, that she will not accompany Neena to her stepfather's family home in Delhi. Now begins the real struggle to bring together the two most important people in her life - her daughter and her husband.

Neena, who doesn't have much of a career left in Mumbai, would happily settle down in domestic bliss in Delhi. But Masaba remains her priority and she has made that very clear to her husband.
Speaking on the subject, Neena says, "As much as I am thrilled with the new development in my life, Masaba still remains my priority. She is studying fashion designing in Mumbai and I cannot leave her alone. So I guess I'll be shuttling between Delhi and Mumbai."

What she leaves unspoken is the fact that Neena is completely enamoured by her new role as a wife. "My marriage to Vivek was not a cakewalk. We were seeing each other for six years, before tying the knot as his divorce had to come through first. However, the marriage definitely caught me off-guard. We had gone to the US to attend his nephew's engagement, when he sprang a surprise wedding on me. There was a pundit, a fire, the works," she giggles.

For the first time Neena, who was till now content leading the hermetic life of a single mother, has discovered the joys of living in a large joint family.

She says, "Vivek's family in Delhi brims over with warmth. They have welcomed me with open arms and have made me feel a part of their family in such a short span of time. I just love the hustle-bustle of the ladies in the house and am looking forward to being part of it."

However, Masaba a stubborn young Scorpio is not quite ready to move out of her comfort zone and step into Neena's marital euphoria. Apparently, the sensitive girl is still desirous of reaching out to her biological father, the former West Indian cricketer Vivian Richards.

Speaking on her daughter's father for the first time, Neena confesses, "Yes, Masaba is in touch with Viv. He is her father, after all. Vivek and Masaba are friends. Masaba and I have known Vivek for six years now so there's a great deal of comfort level between us although the relationship between Vivek and Masaba cannot be defined at the moment."

While Masaba comes to terms with the new development in her mother's life, Neena has no choice but to wait it out, and continue to make Mumbai her home-base.

She admits she doesn't have much of a career in Mumbai. She says, "The television channels do not want the air serials that I like to do. And I don't want to do what they're asking. So there's a kind of dead-end in my career on television. The audience still connects with me and Kanwaljeet through my serial Saans. But where is the opportunity to make something like that? But Kanwaljeet and I are being brought into a serial as a couple."

In addition, Neena has two films up for release. She informs, "I play Mithun Chakraborty's wife in Veer and a pivotal role in Aijaz Khan's The White Elephant. I will also be directing a film very soon. The script should be ready in a couple of weeks. I'll play the lead."

Meanwhile, at 49, Neena is playing a different lead in her newly-married life.