*Merchant navy officer's daughter Takes da world by storm:-If anyone was born to travel, it’s television host and film actress Shenaz Treasuryvala. The daughter of a Merchant Navy captain spent the first seven years of her life traveling the globe on board cargo ships carrying potatoes, onions and rice. “I was even conceived on the ship,” shares the giggly, animated star known for her work as an MTV Asia VJ. “I touched every continent by the time I was seven, every country in Europe and Asia, a few places in Africa. Mum climbed the gangway with little me in her arms,” she recalls. “The only country that didn’t let me off the ship was the United States. I didn’t have a visa at the age of three and even though my parents did, they let my parents on American soil but didn’t let me.”Shenaz’s earliest memories are not of the conventional sort, “I shall never ever forget almost getting kidnapped while climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Mum befriended a French woman who couldn’t have kids; they spent that day together exploring Pisa. Then while climbing down the leaning tower, she held me, looked at mum coldly, and said, ‘I have to take her. You can have more children, I can’t.’ ”During her time on the high seas, Shenaz’s mother handled her early education. “My mum was a teacher so she taught me the basic kindergarten stuff on the ship. At the age of seven my parents decided I had to go ashore and be enrolled into school.” And so, Shenaz, her mother and sister made their home on dry land, while her father continued to sail.Such a colorful upbringing came with its advantages and drawbacks.
Shenaz notes, “I had traveled around the world and had seen so much more than any other child my age.” However, “I didn’t know how to interact with children my age and was a bit too mature.” She jokingly adds, “Don’t worry; I’m more than making up for that now.”Whereas most children might have dreamed of escaping their backyards for a more exotic life, Shenaz entertained fantasies of a more traditional life, saying: “As I spent most of my days fishing on the deck of a huge cargo ship, I would wonder what it would be like to live on land. I fantasized about it. It seemed so unreal and far from my reality. When I finally was on land, I missed waking up in a different country every day, the rocking and rolling of the ship, the breeze in my hair as I walked around on the deck. But most of all I missed the peace and all the dreaming that I used to do as I stared into the sea for hours.”The biggest adjustment was getting used to other children. “I may have met a little boy once in Indonesia when I was four (my dad’s friend’s son), and I chased him around his home trying to kiss him. He ran for his life! And I wept all night wondering why he didn’t like me. That was also my first experience with the opposite sex—permanently damaging,” she quips. “When I moved ashore and finally was put into school, I was very quiet, shy and dreamy, not knowing how to interact with children my age.”That dreaminess soon found a channel, courtesy of playwright Arthur Miller.“My earliest career ambition was at the age of ten. My parents took me to a play,A View From the Bridge. I remember being mesmerized by the actors on stage and the power they had over the audience and me. They could manipulate my feelings and make me cry, love, hate. I told my parents I wanted to be an actress.They told me I should be a doctor or a banker,” she recounts.But showbiz came calling. “I was approached by a production coordinator while I was in what you call, high school. She asked me to test for an ad. I had been approached a few times before and just thought it was a joke and hadn’t really gone to any of the screen tests. I was a rounded kid; I didn’t see myself as a skinny model. My friends urged me to go. There were 200 other young girls at the audition. I really didn’t want to wait around all day, but my friend who was with me refused to let me leave. Luckily it was a performance-based comedy ad and I managed to make them laugh and got the ad.”Shenaz’s parents went along with her foray into entertainment. “They were cool about me doing it for fun, but after the first ad, I started getting many more offers which I took up. Soon I decided that this could be [a] lucrative business while I was in college. In order to be taken seriously I needed to get headshots. That was when they weren’t very encouraging,” says Shenaz, who had a Parsi upbringing.
A couple of years later, Shenaz ended up wearing many hats on MTV Asia. “An MTV host is just a VJ in the States where [the VJ] just does one show; in Asia [the VJ] is an actor, comedian, writer…everything, hosting and acting in every show on the channel. I was based in Singapore for two-and-a-half years, did one show from Hong Kong, another from Bangkok and the rest of the time I was based in Bombay. I hosted and acted in everything for the channel: call-in shows, live shows, comedy shows, Loveline, the Asian Jackass show, the Asian Punk’d—that was the most fun for me.” The gig provided Shenaz with more opportunities to travel, although she says, “Not as much as I would like. I saw all of India and Sri Lanka, every little city and town, which was great as I had been all over the world except my own backyard. My job with MTV was very flexible and I managed to take off a lot on my own. I spent every penny I earned on traveling.”
>>>Aside from all of that, Shenaz, who is single, spends her time, swimming, diving, taking photographs and writing. “I’ve written a screenplay and am looking for financing. Anyone out there want to produce my film? All I need is a million dollars!"
With beauty, brains, so many successes and more to come, the only thing this intriguing globetrotter lacks are frequent-flier miles. “Seriously, I think frequent-flyer miles are a farce. I’ve never gotten a free ticket. Free upgrades, yes. But they really make you work for it; you never just get them at the spur of the moment. And since most of my travel is spontaneous, it doesn’t work for me. And then again I’m not brand loyal and fly every airline, so I haven’t really got as many miles as I deserve.”
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