Mumbai, Maharashtra: In the inspiring conversation with IANS, Miss Cosmo India representative Vipra Mehta opens up about her journey from a five-year-old actor to a purposeful public figure advocating for lake conservation and women empowerment. She reflects on her cultural pride, personal transformation, artistic evolution, and the mentors who shaped her. With passion for storytelling, fitness, dance, and social impact, Vipra shares her vision of serving the nation, growing her environmental initiative Guardians of the Lakes, and building an inclusive fashion label that celebrates every body type. She stands not just as a beauty queen but as India ki ladki a voice of representation, resilience and compassion.
00:00first of all welcome to ians thank you so much
00:19so well when we talk about india the most um the striking quality that we have
00:26is hospitality and when i represent my country on such a global platform i just want to tell
00:33everyone how uh how to treat people how to love them and that is one of the quality i
00:39would love to share with other countries how do you plan to integrate your advocacy
00:45well if i win the title or if i don't i just want to uh tell each one out there that
00:57the awareness is not just about to take an initiative it's about to continue it and
01:03when i represent such a a city which is known for its beautiful and scenic lakes i just want
01:11that the lake that i have adored so much um the future generation should also inherit both
01:17a cleaner and a safer environment when they see the those beautiful lakes which i adored
01:24in the same way i want them to see beyond miss diva and miss cosmo what is your long-term vision
01:31to yourself as a public personality artist and advocate um other than pageantry and other than
01:38my acting career i would love to see myself as someone who is inspiring who know what she is
01:47doing and someone who can conquer the world you began your career at just five years old working
01:54across seven regional films a hindi movie and two hindi series so how do you think starting so young has
02:00shaped your identity and discipline when we talk about i started my journey at the age of five it
02:06actually taught me a lot of things first it taught me the power of storytelling second it taught me
02:13that you can switch your roles whenever you feel like and third that there is no thing that you can't
02:21do i started acting um in a very random way but i think i would love to see myself in hindi cinema movies
02:29having experience in different film industry what culture artistic difference put out to you as a young
02:35performer well very honestly when i started i was no i was not knowing a lot of thing about uh acting
02:43career but slow and steadily when i worked in seven regional films i understood the real artistic side
02:50and there are a lot of cinema and that is the beauty of bollywood we have tamil telgu rajasthani gujarati
03:00punjabi and all the diversity um actually talk a lot of about culture at the same time when it comes to
03:08cinema when we talk about a pageant it's actually the real like we can actually say it like
03:20woman empowerment platform because you could have different backgrounds you could have a lot of
03:28struggles in your life but when you stand on that stage it's just you and your belief so when i talk
03:36when i talk about beauty pageants it's not just about the glitz and glam it's about the beauty with the
03:42brain because this industry doesn't take a beautiful face it takes a beautiful identity and that is what
03:50pageantry stands for pageantry well as i say i come from a city which is beautifully known for its
04:07beautiful lakes palaces culture food and the romance is there in the city so
04:14i i i just saw this vision that what i saw from my own eyes i want the future generation to see the
04:22same so that's how my project the guardians of the lakes began because growing up i saw this beautiful
04:29lakes and i can feel the calm but after that after five six years that calmness went off i can only see
04:39that oil spreading water darkening and pollution around the lakes and that's when it hit me if we keep
04:45waiting for someone else to act we will lose what defines us so that's how my awareness the guardians of the
04:53lakes began we began with awareness talking to students citizens families um i uh hotels uh well hotels
05:03gave us the logistic support and volunteers gave their time support and small investment so with um with
05:11the help of everyone uh we started this project and we want to make it a blueprint for every city that
05:18is near lakes and this initiative is not just about um to clean but it is about to cleanse
05:26it's working around environmentalist afrosha and the ngo aftertaste combines ecology cultural
05:34women empowerment and financial independence so how do you ensure these elements work together in a unified
05:39community when we talk about afrosha uh he's a very renowned face um because the amount of work
05:48he is doing towards lakes is beyond uh any imagination and we when we talk about aftertaste they are a
05:56new organization and they are building their base but i must say that all the women over there are
06:03working immensely hard to prove themselves not themselves but their identity so both the projects
06:11are a bit different but they connect in a similar way which is serving something for our nation and
06:17nation needs that we also want to know that what challenges you face while working on ground level
06:22conversation efforts and how have they changed your approach to leadership well when we talk about
06:28leadership it's all about ups and downs uh so when i started i was not having any support families were
06:35not talking about their problems so i thought why not to go uh to their home and talk about it so that was
06:44the initial uh struggle that i faced but i'm grateful that the people's are very resilient they're very
06:50welcome warm warm warm coming and that is the reason uh i just not took an initiative i have chosen it
06:59um so i'm very grateful for that you have trained under industry experts to miss cosmo 2025 can you walk us
07:07through the most transformative aspect of doing this process well um i was trained in work with kavita
07:15karnayat and she is a supermodel and she has not just taught me that how to walk but how to work with
07:24elegance um when we talk about my makeup artist which is aisha aisha said she has um amplified my beauty
07:35sport in a very different way and that is something that i adore now um thank you so much uh to my gym
07:43trainer reset for giving me such great body and a lot of mentor actually my communication teachers
07:51kreet bedi has been one of my favorite teachers because she not just gave me confidence but she
07:58gave me content also so i just want to say thank you so much to all my mentors all my gurus that
08:06helped me not just bringing the best version of myself but the authentic one
08:11you have trained in the industry experts on miss cosmo 2035 can you walk us through the more
08:16transformative aspects of this building well the transformation was uh immensely hard but it was
08:25so smooth because of my mentors um i started learning my walk session with kavita kharayat which is
08:33like she doesn't taught me how to walk in heels but she taught me how to talk in heels because it's so
08:40important to feel confident from within when you're walking on the stage um thank you so much aisha shade
08:48because she gave me confidence when i stand on the stage uh thank you so much supreet bedi and he she is
08:56like one of my favorite teacher over here so she helped me a lot like she has put in a lot of hard work
09:05um i'm so grateful for that and um when i talk about my fitness being a fitness person thank you so
09:13much reset and samir purohit and namrita purohit for their love and support and the belief that they saw
09:21that i can look in a certain way so thank you so much to all my gurus who have been helping me throughout my
09:28journey okay what internal qualities according to you beyond technical skills did your mentor help you did your mentors help you study well a few years back i often struggled with my own weight and
09:42um at the time i thought i'm not uh i will not be able to fit into the pageant world
09:48but one thing that came into my way was the fitness journey and it was not just about cutting the weight
09:55but it was actually about dedication it taught me a lot of things that i never imagined like
10:01i have done 75 hard-up days which is like one of the toughest uh thing you can do in your life
10:08other than that it taught me that it's not just about the reduction of uh reduction of weight it's
10:16about like the discipline that you carry within yourself and it actually helped me a lot towards
10:23my pageant journey well um when the pressure comes i used to calm myself because being a morning
10:38person i always used to meditate do yoga do gym and i think that is one of the reason that i feel very
10:46confident within myself other than that if there is any pressure i used to do a lot of dance because
10:53it gives so much of energy to my performance you enjoy performing dance dance so how do you merge
11:00activism and artistry in your performances well when we talk about dance it's not just about any art form
11:07but it actually taught you that every hand gesture has a different story and what is exactly dance
11:14stands for i have learned um urban styles like whacking which is like a street dance oriented
11:21oriented by um the pubs and the uh the street players and um when i talk about the stunts it gives the
11:30thriller power to my dance i can do back flip front flip cartwheel headstand splits and
11:37you just name it and i can do it
11:43beyond miss diva and miss cosmo what is your long-term vision for yourself as a public personality
11:50well my long-term uh vision will be always to serve to the nation if i talk about the guardians of the
11:58lakes i just want to grow more further and further and i want to see myself into the bollywood industry
12:05acting and feel the life of actress and third would be um i just want to open a label which talks about
12:15every background every race every um every size and shape of woman because growing up i often struggle
12:24with a lot of things and i couldn't find a label which talks about um the shape and size of the women
12:30and the clothes but uh
12:35okay uh okay so growing up i often struggle with a lot of uh weight issue and i couldn't find a label
12:46which talks about um every body type but i want to be the one who actually talk about body type because
12:54when you walk into my store it's not just about clothes it's about you i just want to give other
13:01people the confidence that i have within myself and i wear clothes so i think they are my pretty long time
13:08visions are there any specific industries for social entrepreneurship
13:20when i talk about these uh it could be acting it could be advocacy it could be opening a label but
13:28it actually depends on uh my pageant journey though and what are the upcoming projects or idea excites
13:35you the most or why does it feel meaningful at this stage of your journey i can't listen you are too fast
13:41for me what upcoming project or idea excites you the most and why does it feel meaningful at this stage of
13:49your journey when um well i'm really excited because it's only nine days left and when we talk
13:57about such a global stage it's my pride to be there and represent my own country with all the love and
14:03support so i'm just excited but i'm a bit nervous also because it's a big responsibility and i'm looking
14:11forward to it as you have told that you want to work in bollywood also who are the actors and directors
14:18so it's only one the king khan which is sharuk khan i would love to see myself with him uh it's like
14:26a dream because from childhood i've been mesmerized with the content uh with the amount of behavior he
14:34showed to the world it's pure pure pure a gentleman ship so i would love to see myself with him
14:41in somewhere in sanchi leela bansali's film and i just hope and manifest for that
14:52to all my fans who are supporting me from india from vietnam from across the world
14:57thank you so much for opening your hearts and home for me and sharing so much of warmth uh towards my
15:05my journey it's it's so um i'm really so grateful for this opportunity because i'm not just representing
15:13myself as viparamata i'm representing india as india ki ladki thank you so much
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