Shal was four years old when she arrived in Delhi with her four sisters, the youngest of the group, carried out of Muradabad and into the care of a children’s home she would eventually call her world. More than a decade later, she stood in a room in Mumbai holding a garment she had spent three months building from scratch, waiting to find out whether a Bollywood icon would love it or not. What happened between those two moments is the kind of story that makes you rethink what the word ‘family’ actually means.
A mentor parent to 40 girls who gave up corporate life to do it
India holds the highest population of orphans in the world, and the weight of that number lands differently once you meet Deepak, a mentor parent within the Udan Care program who was 36 years old when he decided he would walk away from active corporate life by his early fifties to give back. He kept that promise. By the time Darren from Beast Philanthropy visited the Udan Care home in New Delhi, Deepak had become a de facto father figure to 40 girls, funded largely out of personal commitment and a constant scramble for financing.
Udan Care was founded by Dr. Modi, whose path to the work began with a childhood memory of being separated from his parents in a crowded place at the age of eight. A police officer returned him to his family that day, but the experience stayed with him. Years later, visiting children’s homes across India, a child grabbed his clothes and said ‘please take me home.’ That became the Udan Care home program, and in 2002 Dr. Modi added the Udan Shalini fellowship, which pairs girls from underprivileged backgrounds with mentors who support their education and personal development into adulthood.
Shal was one of those girls. She completed her class 12 exams while wrestling with what she actually wanted to do with her life. Deepak sat with her through those conversations. When she said she wanted to be a fashion designer, he told her: ‘If you have to be a fashion designer, you should go for the best institute at least in India.’ She worked for it, and she got in. The National Institute of Fashion Technology in Mumbai. Deepak flew with her to drop her off, the same way he had once traveled to leave his own son at his MBA program. ‘It was a similar feeling,’ he said, ‘going the same way I had gone to drop my son.’
She later asked if she could call him Papa. He said he could barely believe his ears.
Three months of work, one dress, and a room in Mumbai
Bollywood star Jacqueline Fernandez flew into Delhi to meet the Udan Care girls, and the team arranged a surprise for Shal, who was sitting in a separate room with no idea who had arrived. Darren and Jacqueline coordinated the entrance, and when Shal looked up, she found herself being asked a question she had never been asked before: had she ever designed a dress for a celebrity? She had just come out of college. The answer was no. But she said yes to the commission on the spot.
The design she produced drew on the work of Alexander McQueen. She described it as ‘an armor which can be worn by women and show power and protection.’ When Jacqueline saw the finished piece in Mumbai three months later, her reaction came out before she could compose it: ‘I love it. It’s so freaking cool. You’ve made me feel good wearing this. It actually does make one feel powerful.’ Jacqueline told her she was astonished by her capability.
Beast Philanthropy committed to covering the running costs of the Udan Care home for one full year and funding 280 Shalini fellowships, giving 280 young women access to mentoring, education, and skills training. The dress Shal designed and Jacqueline wore went up for auction, with all proceeds directed to Udan Care.
Shal is set to begin a Master’s program at the Kingston School of Arts in London in September, before eventually launching her own brand. She told Deepak in a letter: ‘I don’t call you dad, I call you Uncle, but the respect I have is more than a dad.’
The birthday dress that came from the heart
Before the Mumbai reveal, Shal gave Darren a sewing lesson. He attempted a red dress as a birthday gift for Dan, stitching by hand with the conviction of someone who had no idea what he was doing. ‘It’s going to be a collector’s piece one day,’ Darren announced. Dan looked at it and said it would look like a maternity dress if he wore it. Darren, visibly unbothered: ‘It comes from the heart, Danny Boy.’
Shal’s finished dress, meanwhile, is now in Jacqueline Fernandez’s hands, built by a girl who grew up without a family and found one anyway.
