What do beauty pageant winners do once the limelight turns onto their successors? Is Bollywood the only option for girls smitten by the glamour bug? Before I meet this beauty queen, the little I know about 28-year-old Shvetha Bhupathi is what I have heard from her husband, Mahesh's childhood friends who say she is rather reserved yet friendly....

Curious about the behind-the-scenes part she enacts in the global arena of sports, celebrities and event management, I gather nuggets about the 'Director, Globosport'. I find that Shvetha does play much more than the customary, decorative role in the swiftly growing company that has made a tremendous impact from the time her tennis ace husband launched it a few years ago. After she quit modelling, she acquired an MBA from the prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) and with her overwhelming experience in the media and entertainment industry, she continues to provide valuable insights.

She is in Mumbai for an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) event…and takes time out from organising its nitty-gritties to take centre stage herself, off the court. "It feels odd," says Shvetha, as she walks down the corridor of a high-end South Mumbai hotel towards the restaurant that is the location for our shoot. It is mid-morning and players - of all nationalities - are walking in and out of lifts. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a blonde sharp-server, bag on shoulder, take a second look at the former model and international pageant runner-up. She waves at him and explains, "They hardly ever see me like this; I am normally in my trousers and tees when there is work to be done."

So, why did the willowy contestant who represented India at the Miss India International Beauty Pageant at Tokyo just a few years ago…a model who made her hometown, Chennai, swagger with pride, turn her back on a world filled with opportunities of glamour and glitz, money and the movies?

"I turned down the chance to do big films..."
Surprisingly, unlike the Rais and the Sens before her, Shvetha was not overtly keen on taking the plunge into 'the big bad world' of Hindi cinema. It was a 'mysterious, unknown arena'. Admitting that today, the scenario is different - it is much more "transparent, open and systematic", Shvetha states, "I had the privilege to say 'no' to Mani Ratnam and Subhash Ghai when they asked me to come for auditions for their next projects. I was kicked that they called…. But honestly, I did not want to try my luck at the box office. I had somehow coped with modelling but I knew that I would have been completely out of my depth in the movies. I don't know if I could have ever been a good actress. I never had the inclination."

"My height has always been a conversation breaker..."
At 5' 10", Shvetha could, from an early age, literally look down on many people. "I was in standard 7 and I was the tallest in the school…I kind of enjoyed being tall. It was like an icebreaker and it helped me a lot."
Being tall was one of the reasons she may have been selected for the national beauty contest. "At that time, I was very young and I had a small town upbringing. I went completely unprepared for the preliminary rounds," she remembers. "The girls are much more competitive today. I was more prepared for the international contest where I represented India. I enjoyed it because at that time there were no expectations from me. I had a blast." And, she won the third position....

"I was not narcissistic about my looks..."
Confessing that it may sound like a cliché, Shvetha says that her growing-up years were filled with sports and academics. With her parents out at work, she was brought up by her maternal grandfather, who instilled in her a love for simple things. "I was the centre of attention for three people…I thrived on it and yet, I valued the small gifts I got. My grandfather came from a poor family and though life had considerably improved, he never forgot his early lessons. Even today, I feel the unconscious need to keep a balance. I learnt how to be organised and responsible for many things."
The absence of siblings did not turn her into a loner. "Though I had a lot of friends and went to many classes with kids my own age, I have always been comfortable with people older than me." Confessing that "I was not an angelic child and loved whatever my parents got me from their frequent trips abroad…I soon learnt an important lesson that was told to me when I was quite young: 'Not everyone is going to treat you the way we do.'"

"I loved the freedom modelling gave me..."
There was some promise in this 'ugly duckling' for as she says, "Prasad (Bidappa) saw something in my slightly overweight, dark form that he could groom...."
The title and the international exposure gave her a cutting edge but somehow Shvetha found that her individual mindset set her apart. "I couldn't grasp the fact that you need an attitude on the ramp…that people judge you only on the way you look. I found that difficult to accept. Quite a few girls are not conventionally pretty but they come across as stunning. Beauty is how you feel about yourself. This is something that can throw you off in the industry."
The girl who came to Mumbai - after modelling awhile in Bangalore - "learnt things the hard way. I had come here to test the waters. I stayed in various homes…in small, spare rooms as a paying guest. It was tough as I had always had my private space. These couple of years made me grow up much faster than I would have otherwise done...."
Things have turned out for the best, she opines. "I don't want to sound complacent but I am very happy about who I am and where I am today. I have definitely created a name for myself. If you have your ambitions and set your goals towards then, you can make it. I never wanted to be a model. It was forced into my head. Modelling was more a detour than the path that I wanted to take."

"Professional tennis is much more than a game..."
Her personal involvement with sports - tennis and basketball - nonetheless, she never considered it as a profession. "I played the games for my state but I realised that you need mentoring and have to put in loads of time and effort, something that perhaps I was not willing to do," she smiles. "Later, when I met Mahesh and got involved with his schedules, I knew that I could not have done 1/100th of what he was putting into his game."
Her early forays onto the circuit ensured that she knew about Mahesh long before they 'paired off'. "I have often seen Leander (Paes) and Mahesh play together. When I got to know him better, I was very surprised by the difference between his on court and off court personalities," she says. "During his games, he always shows so much energy and aggression…but off it, he is quiet, so modest. You could easily miss him if he was not so tall. We did not share an instant chemistry…but the attraction grew. Perhaps, he needed a sounding board…or maybe he just liked to hear me talk…. Once we got serious about each other, I took a few steps back from the glamour world. Today, no matter what I do, I may never match his achievements. But he never makes me feel like his shadow.

"More or less, I am happy with the way I am..."
She is dressed up and all ready to shoot again…As she strikes the mandatory poses, the photographer applauds her innate grace, even as she comments, "This does bring back old times."
Those were also the times when she was more stressed out over small things that could unsettle her. "If I did not hear from my parents for long, I'd start worrying. Even today, when I am watching Mahesh play, my stress levels go up."
Quiz her on what he finds most attractive about her and she says, "I would say my eyes but he thinks my smile is the most beautiful thing about me". Ask her what she would like to change about herself and her reply is prompt: "My shoe size. I have a fetish for shoes but with a size 11, I find it difficult to get exactly what I want. One size smaller would make it easier."
The lady does "have a weakness for branded bags, even though neither Mahesh or I are into the cutting edge of things" and finds the opportunity for "creating new brands a challenge. To do it in a competitive market is even more exhilarating."