Meet Sunil Mehta

A national-level basketball player and an alumnus of St. Stephens College, Delhi, this eco-entrepreneur started life as a pharmaceuticals promoter, exporter and as the Chief Coordinator for the Rajasthan State Government and the Rajasthan Association of North America (RANA). He now runs a real estate business that seeks to change the image of the sector by helping to improve the ecology of the geographies where his businesses are located. He met Bittu Sahgal at the Bamboo Forest Safari Lodge in Tadoba and spoke to him about how ensuring equitable justice to local communities could end up rewilding India.

WAS JAIPUR ALWAYS YOUR FAMILY’S BASE?

Today, I really do not even know where my ‘base’ is because I spend so much time travelling across India, but yes, I grew up in Jaipur where my physician father taught us that the measure of success was not your money, but how people’s lives were improved by their association with you. My mother is a homemaker and we always lived a life of purpose guided by principles that turned community into family.

YOUR FRIENDS AT ST. STEPHEN’S COLLEGE, DELHI, STILL REFER TO YOU AS THAT ‘AWESOME BASKETBALL PLAYER’. WHAT TURNED A NATIONAL-LEVEL SPORTSMAN INTO A SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PROFESSIONAL?

Even back then the wilderness and the forests held a special attraction. Naturally, after retiring from basketball I set up a business based on tourism in rural India with a steely determination to help protect wildlife, while also improving the condition of the communities upon whom the success of any such enterprise is ultimately dependent. In a sense, a marriage of good natural resource management and human resource development. I hasten to add, the people I ‘helped’ ended up helping me even more. I sleep well at night!

WAS THERE ANY PARTICULAR INCIDENT THAT PROPELLED YOU TOWARD WILDLIFE CONSERVATION?