Seema Kaushik Mehta

Seema Kaushik Mehta (born c.1976) is an Indian Kathak expert and designer of jewellery. She received the Nari Shakti Puraskar award for her dancing advocacy in 2019 after working with under-privileged children in Mumbai.

Life

She was born in about 1976 and she studied at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. She and Pandit Das founded the second branch of his school in India, Chhandam Nritya Bharati, in Mumbai in 2010. Mehta's mentor had taught Kathak dance to the children of sex workers in Calcutta to help them break free of the cycle of exploitation.

Mehta was given the Nari Shakti Puraskar award on International Women's Day in 2019. 1000 women were nominated for the award and 44 were chosen to receive it. She was chosen because of her work with under-privileged children in Mumbai. They were learning to dance, but also to assert themselves. Maneka Gandhi was at the ceremony and spoke about the ambition of women in India.

Jewelry Mehta runs a school Chhandam Nritya Bharati and is still involved in jewelry design. She says that jewellery design and dance are both part of her life. She is the creative director in her family's jewellery business.