Sathya Saran profiles the rise of Aishwarya Rai

I knew Aishwarya before I really knew her. Knew her as a Miss India certainly. As a model incarnate. As one hell of a pretty girl, who came alive in front of the camera and wowed the senses.

I hadn’t met her then, of course. I saw her first in the Pepsi ad and told myself, hmm, maybe there’s something more to this girl than all the talk. Make-up men, photographers, hair stylists cannot all be wrong, I thought — as I sent the first feelers out to her to send in her entry for the Femina Miss India Contest.

The year was 1993.
She would, she wouldn’t. She wanted to, she didn’t. Her parents were not keen; she did not feel prepared.

The rumours floated in thick, the feedback came from everyone who professed to know her - meanwhile, a host of other entrants backed down and almost pulled out their entry forms, when they heard she was a possible contender.

Then in 1994, Aishwarya sent in her entry. The rest is her story as history.

She walked away with the preliminary titles, made Goa sizzle in the midst of January. Her contenders were reduced to shadows even as she walked the ramp. And then, she won, not the title she had wanted — the Femina Miss Universe title — but the one that qualified her for competing at Miss World.

Come May, Sushmita Sen won the Miss Universe title. And giving all the doubting Thomases the lie, Ash went on to win Miss World 1994 just five months later, in October, thus staking her claim to be without any doubt, the world’s most beautiful woman.

A star every bit of the way, every Indian male’s dream woman, and every Bollywood producer’s dream heroine... Subhash Ghai’s offer already a given, Aishwarya was the cynosure of all eyes. But film offers notwithstanding, Ash remained steadfast to her commitment to Miss World Inc. And spent her reign dazzling the underprivileged, the sick, the orphans and the needy as much with her cognac eyes and warm smile as with the sparkle of the gems in her turquoise and aquamarine crown.

Internationally, she wowed talent scouts with her level headedness and chutzpah — and there was no hesitation in Longines signing her on and placing her on par with the legendary Audrey Hepburn as a symbol of elegance. It was the first of the many statements that would go towards the building up of a very real woman, a very real icon.

But ever so quickly, the year was gone. Aishwarya Rai, Miss World 1994, had to become good old Ash again. The ball was over, the crown had been handed back, and even as she stood on stage, crowning another Miss World, as she had crowned another Femina Miss India, her world must have seemed to turn from being many-splendoured to sepia.

I wondered what she would do next