Aishwarya Rai 

Vipin Agnihotri 

Who is the most beautiful woman in the world? This question always hovers around in the minds of the people of every era. And most of the time, Hollywood will crop up with names of their choice and we Indians just admire them. But things have changed for the better, blame it to the unofficial reigning queen of Indian cinema, and also a classically trained dancer, Aishwarya Rai.

As compared to some of her Bollywood and Hollywood counterparts, Rai is very much like the women she portrays: wholesome, dutiful and deeply religious.

Coming to the opening stanza of her life, Aishwarya never dreamt of being an actress. As a matter of fact, she grew up in a strict middle-class home as the daughter of a merchant marine and a writer. She was an “A” student on track to become an architect, until the “Miss World” pageant happened. She entered because, she wanted to change the way the world saw India. And by god, she has definitely changed the whole outlook from that time onward.

At the age of 21, Aishwarya became Miss World. It didn’t take long after that for her to become the brightest star in Bollywood. Now 30 plus, she’s still the same traditional Indian girl, who likes to live with her parents.

There is no denying the fact that at the moment Aishwarya is not only one of the wealthiest women in India, but Time magazine has also named her among the 100 most influential people on the globe. When she’s seen in new clothes, it invariably creates a lot of buzz in the media.

 
Statistically speaking, Aishwarya Rai is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, with more than 18,000 websites devoted to her. Appreciating her beauty, famous Hollywood actress Julia Roberts called her the most beautiful woman in the world at the Cannes Film Festival. In addition, she was interviewed on famous US shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show, and the late night with David Letterman who famously introduced Aishwarya as “the biggest movie star in the world”.

Talking about her career, Aishwarya started her journey in Bollywood with the film “Aur Pyar Ho Gaya” starring Bobby Deol. But she first made her mark in 1999 after a top-notch performance in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” starring Salman Khan. Later, she stamped her authority by giving standout performances in films like “Taal” and “Devdas”.

Aishwarya’s career graph started moving upwards after the international success of “Devdas”. Despite having presence of stars like Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya was not overawed by the situation. And that’s where she started growing as an actor.

After the special screening of “Devdas” at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002, Aishwarya was invited in Cannes in 2003 as the member of the jury. After the exposure at Cannes, she publicly declared her desire of working in Hollywood.

 
But for that to happen, she had to wait for a long time. This great moment finally arrived in 2004, when British Director Gurinder Chadha hired her to play the heroine in the film “Bride and Prejudice”, a Hollywood-funded but Bollywood-ized version of Jane Austen’s classic novel, “Pride and Prejudice”. Though the film turned out to be a mediocre in US but it generated profit in terms of revenue. Her next film, “Mistress of Spices”, written by Gurinder Chadha did not fair well at the box office. But despite that, she still managed to have a lot of prestigious Hollywood films in her kitty.

Unlike her career, Aishwarya’s personal life has always been an unsettled proposition. She began dating Salman Khan, after doing the film “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” with him. But what followed later created quite a buzz in the media fraternity. After her breakup with Salman, a police report was filed by Aishwarya’s parents alleging that Salman had smashed windows and furniture at their home. Apart from this an inebriated Salman subsequently assaulted Rai on the set of a movie she was working on, soon before he was arrested for drunken driving and vehicular homicide.

 
Recently, at the premiere of her film “Provoked”, in which she plays the role of a real-life victim of domestic violence, Aishwarya reported that she personally suffered from domestic violence. This reference was linked by the Press with her past relationship with Salman.

After Salman, Aishwarya dated Vivek Oberoi for some time. However, when asked, she never admitted to the relationship. Rumour has it that Rai is in a relationship with Abhishek Bachchan which began during the filming of “Umrao Jaan”. She had previously co-starred with Abhishek in “Kuch Na Kaho”. Media fraternity had reported that there is some sort of affair between Aishwarya and Abhishek but both have so far denied the relationship. Clearly, personal life of Aishwarya is not settled as compared to her professional life.

 
In recent times, she is also facing a rough weather weight-wise. Her directors have made her lose weight, then gain weight and then lose again for successive films.

Not very long ago, she was asked to shed a few pounds for her role in the film “Dhoom 2”, starring Hrithik Roshan. Being a dedicated actress, Aishwarya is working overtime to get into the skin of her role.

The best part about Aishwarya as an individual is that despite her beauty and superstar status, she is an easygoing person who gels well with her co-stars.

Aishwarya has made a couple of new sahelis and friends in the last few months. While working on her soon-to-be-released project “Provoked”, Aishwarya became very fond of Nandita Das who is playing a small role in the movie. As a matter of fact, Aishwarya even admitted to the media that she was a fan of Nandita’s acting.

And then later, during the making of Mani Ratnam’s Guru starring Abhishek Bacchan and Vidya Balan. Aishwarya got along very well with her co-star Vidya Balan.

All in all, Aishwarya Rai as a global phenomenon is yet to be seen in full flight but it’s only a matter of time. Perhaps a pivotal role in a Hollywood film will do the trick resulting in India’s jewel becoming the whole world’s darling.