Behala girl Sangeeta Roychaudhuri is on cloud nine. What her idols like Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan did some 30 years ago, winning an international level pageant, she did it too. She has made the country proud by winning Mrs Asia India 2023! The mother of a 13-year-old has served in various capacities in the corporate world for over two decades, from a sales and marketing job at Leela Palace Hotel in Bangalore to working in MNCs like CRISIL (Standard & Poor’s company), Dun & Bradsteed to serving the Amicorp Group as the director, India. The 43-year-old is also involved in a lot of philanthropic activities and dons many hats as an entrepreneur. The Telegraph caught up with the Kolkata girl, an alumnus of St Xavier’s College, for an exclusive chat.
Congratulations on being crowned Mrs Asia India! What does this title mean to you?
Pageant is not just about beauty and body, there is a lot of self-discovery involved in it. I remember when I was younger, I would follow those Q&A sessions at the finale of the beauty pageants seriously and would be awestruck, looking at the presence of mind the participants would show with so much grace.
You hail from a non-modelling background. What motivated you to foray into this challenging space?
As a teenager, I got rejected by college fashion shows due to my lack of confidence and low self-esteem. I have a Bengali medium school background and extremely humble beginnings. I had always had this ambition to study English honours at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and the way it happened is a story for another day. And I’m grateful it did! My immense suffering throughout my life, getting mocked for my poor English-speaking skills and all those insecurities that come with getting bullied my entire life have moulded me into who I am today. Even at my first job interview, I was rejected due to my poor English-speaking ability. When I first came to Bangalore, people used to mock me for my Bengali accent. All this suffering has made me rise like a phoenix from the ashes. That’s how I look at it.
Tell us about some rejections that served as the biggest teachers in your life.
I remember after I won the Expectant Mom contest in 2010 and the Corporate Diva contest in 2016, I auditioned for a pageant and got rejected. The reason for the rejection is still unknown to me, but in hindsight, when I look back at the video of myself and other contestants, I feel I took the right direction afterwards. I was 68kg back then. I took charge of my body and fitness. And it’s not just about weight reduction for winning a pageant. Today I feel so much lighter and I don’t feel tired easily. I can take two flights every day of the week without feeling exhausted. It won’t be a big deal. I feel much more energetic today and can take a lot more on my plate.
Anybody in your life you owe your success to?
It has to be my father. He has inculcated in me a strong value system since childhood.
What would you want to tell women who aspire but get stuck owing to familial responsibilities after marriage?
Winning a title for the country is indeed very prestigious. Lots of women get stuck after marriage and think they can’t do anything in life. But I feel every woman out there is empowered by themself. We just need someone to take charge and pull them up. If you are passionate about something, you will eventually end up attracting resources. All you need to do is start acting and not procrastinate.
Looking beyond the beauty and fitness quotient, what do these contests teach one?
There is a lot of self-discovery one will go through. One will find out who one is, why one is there and what is one’s purpose. Confidence is the biggest accessory that one can ever have. And these pageants also judge you based on how you behave with your co-contestants and whether you are helpful or self-concentrated. Code of conduct is really important, apart from your intellectual abilities and fitness quotient.
Tell us about your philanthropic activities.
All of that has its roots in my own childhood trauma and vulnerabilities. Be it through my NGO, Hinjewadi Cultural Association, which supports educational, cultural, environmental and healthcare activities or my start-up Edudha, my purpose is to uplift others. Edudha is a marketplace for overseas education. In the next couple of years, my ambition would be to support the foreign education of at least one girl child aspiring to go abroad. My other startup, WealthCube Capital, is in the wealth management space and it currently sustains a portfolio worth around Rs 100 crores. I started all of these in the post-pandemic years. I have a multi-media channel, Your Icon, where I interview really inspiring folks. And whenever I feel exhausted, I write poetry. It’s my comfort zone, my soul, my everything when the whole world falls apart. My first book Celebrate Your Wings is an Amazon bestseller, and I am about to launch my second book soon.
Pictures courtesy: Sangeeta Roychaudhuri