Profession: Model and Actress

Address: 402 Ramlakshmi Nowas
16th Road (Near Khar Gym), Khar (W)
Mumbai 400 054

Tel: +91-22-6054440 / 6463744 / 6463930
(Try your luck!!! It worked for me)

Nick Name: Aishu

Popularly Known As: Ash

Date of Birth: 1st November, 1973

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Place of Birth: Karnataka

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 55 kgs

Eyes: Green-Blue

Identification Marks: Mole on left hand above elbow

Languages Known: English, Hindi , Kannada, and Tamil

Awards: Miss World 1994,
Most Photogenic Face,
Miss India 1994,
Screen Weekly 1997,
Discovery of the year (Screen 1998)
Most Promising Newcomer,
and many more to come...

Clothes Casuals and Formals: Like structure jackets, form fitting gowns for formal wear and chikan salwaar kameez for casual wear. Jeans & T-Shirt do very well too. Hate anything that's fussy and frilly

Favourate Designer Objects : Longines Watches

Favourite Jewellry : Dainty Jewellry

Favourite Cars : Toyota Celica

Favourite all-time movie: Casablanca

Food habits: Fussy About Very plain fare. Not fussy about food at all. Can survive on dal chawal and vegetables

Happy moments: Family and a very close group of friends

Scary moments: Cockroaches, she abhors them

Hate: Gossip, hypocrisy

Dream man: Handsome but not necessarily tall and dark!

Idea of love: Is what her parents share

Weakness: Willing-ness to take people at face value

Strength: Self-assurance. It's ever present even in the worst situations

Idea of bliss: Lies somewhere in the vicinity of her bed (loves to laze, that's all she mean!)

Possessive about: The people she care for

Favourite colognes: Happy by Clinique

What turns up on: Razor sharp intelligence, witty repartees

Fovourite pastime: Sleeping (Alone, mind you!)

Idea of sexy: A combination of vulnerability and intelligence

Favourite number-group: Very democratic in tastes, anything that's music to ears, will do

Sentimental about: A lot of things from her childhood

Favourite holiday resort: Any place that gives her peace of mind

Admire: Strength of character

Believe: In God first and then herself

Best compliment received: A child at an orphanage told her that her warmth over shines her beauty. She was bowled over!

Paranoid about: Being an under-achiever

Colours crazy about: Black, she love it!

Booked in the industry till: She utters the magic words, 'I Do'

The saddest moment: When she didn't make it to the top three in her 10th grade

Favorite Actor(s): Raj Kapoor

Favorite Actress(es): Madhubala and Nargis

Brother: One brother (Aditya, 3 years elder)

Father's Occupation: Merchant Navy Officer

Father's Name: Krishnaraj Rai

Mother's Name: Brindya Rai

Schooling: Arya Vidya Mandir, Santacruz, Bombay, India

Academic Record: Excellent

Intermediate College: DG Ruparel College, Matunga, Bombay, India

Favourite Subject At College: Zoology

Percentage Of Marks Obtained At Her HSC Exams: 90%

Career Selected After HSC: Architecture course at Raheja College

First modelling Assignment: When she was at 9th grade, for Camelin Industries

Other Modelling Assignments: Pamolive, Casio pager, Pepsi,Philips, Sheetal diva, Prudent

She Describes Herself In One Line: "I'm just average woman with average concerns"

Motto: "Be kind, there are battles being fought and not all of them are on the battlefield"

Message To Fans: "Life may be one BIG Drama, and we, character in it....
But....LIVE IT.....Every moment in it!"

Aishwarya Rai, the second child of Brindya and Krishnaraj Rai, was born blue-eyed like her grandfather. Over the years, the color slowly changed into the now famous grey-green. By the time she had reached high school, her charm could move mountains and little schoolboys, who every week proposed everlasting love and marriage to her. At home, she received cards and telephone calls from admirers that earned her disapproving lectures from her protective older brother.

Through all this, Ash (to her friends) moved gracefully and remained focused on her studies, excelling academically and becoming the Head Girl of her school. While studying architecture in Bombay, she oved into the heady world of modeling and even without a regular ortfolio of pictures, was soon in great demand, bagging many prestigious ad campaigns and gracing the most important fashion shows. But it was her unforgettable Pepsi commercial with actor Aamir Khan -"Hi- I'm Sanju"- that took her to the masses.

In 1993, it was rumored that she had decided to enter the Miss India contest and certain newspapers began endorsing her as the "Face of 1993". When she did enter in 1994, a spontaneous publicity campaign awaited her.

"Initially I tried to dissuade her," recalls Hemant Trivedi, Aishwarya's close friend, designer and the person who gave her the first break as a model. "What was the need when she was already a star. She's a stubborn ox and when her mind is made up, there is nothing or no one who can change it. I think her entering was more of a "I want to feel good about myself" decision. Unfortunately, she was under tremendous pressure by trying to live up to other people's expectations - and that is really never fair".

In Goa, everything went right for Aishwarya in the first few days of the pageant. She had won the Miss Catwalk, Miss Photogenic and the important Miss Perfect 10. With each succeeding crown, the 23 other contestants began to get edgy, particularly with the last title, since it would count in the event of a tie. As one of the five finalists, Aishwarya was posed the common question : Which historical moment would you rewrite if given the chance to do so?" She stated that she would rewrite the moment of her birth, so she could have been born a leader of sorts and changed the world to bring peace. Her answer appeared self centered and the pendulum swung away from her. The judges called for a tie, and another agonizingly tense round of questioning took place on stage.

Did the sudden swing of the press upset her? "When people expect too much of me something always goes wrong," she explains. "I was always a top scoring student in school and during my ICSE, I expected to do brilliantly, but I wasn't even amongst the top three. I stood eighth in class. That was the one time I broke down and was shattered. But it taught me a lesson in life. In fact, just before the Miss India contest, the newspapers made me the hot favorite and intuitively I told my friends then, that I wasn't going to win. Even at the Miss World contest in South Africa, though I was just one contestant amongst 87, just before the pageant, I was touted as the hot favorite and I thought to myself, "Jesus, this is all I need".

For her homecoming in December 1994 with the Miss World crown firmly on her head, thousands of Indians thronged the airport and lined the streets around her horse driven cavalcade. The prodigal daughter had come home to a royal welcome. During her reign, Aishwarya essentially lived in the United Kingdom and returned only four times to India, to complete various modeling assignments. She naturally spent her free time with close friends and family, catching up on all that she had been missing. "No matter how euphoric the victory was, I could not wait to return home. London was cold and grey in January, and I wondered how I would spend the next ten months away from India. It was a physically and emotionally exhausting year, no two ways about, because you have to be aware and alert all the time. After all, though I was presenting myself as an ambassador for the world, I did want to leave an impression as an Indian. Britishers have heard tales of India from their grandparents and their picture of India is still shaped by these stories: India has this sarkar system, you have trees from which you can pluck fruits and tigers roaming around you. I was hysterical when I heard it. They couldn't believe I was educated in India. They couldn't even believe that we have English-medium schools in cities!"

Her appearance at numerous charity balls and dinners allowed her to meet Hollywood stars and members of many royal families. About her career change she explains, "I was unable to continue studying in India because quite honestly, the circumstances were not the same. I was no longer perceived as a "normal" or regular student. For my peers and professors, I was Aishwarya Rai - the personality. I saw this when I was felicitated sweetly by my college. In the environment, I don't think I would have been comfortable as a student. I've chosen films because people suggested that I could try it out for a year and if I didn't enjoy the experience I could always pack my bags and go overseas to study further."

Having pledged her beautiful eyes to an Eye Bank and endorsing it on national television, Ash was once again showered by publicity. Since her entrance into the Indian film industry in 1995, she has been signed on by the best directors, in films with lavish budgets, opposite leading stars and is today the superstar of the Indian film industry. Aishwarya Rai - an original, who is treading very well in her transition from beauty queen to screen queen, moving beyond the flashlights into the limelight.