Aishwarya Rai

Miss India !! When we think of this title, we think of beautiful talented women. Winning a Miss India contest is probably the best possible ticket to Bollywood if you do not belong to a Bollywood family. In this brief article we take a look at the celebrities Miss India contest contributed to Bollywood.

If we go through the list, the first Miss India to make a mark in the entertainment world was Persis Khambatta ( Miss India 1965). Persis starred in the highly popular series, “Star Trek” and Newsweek called her the Sophia Lauren of India. In 1979, Swaroop Sampat won the covetted title.

Swaroop was the lead in the TV comedy Yeh Jo Hain Zindagi and went on to marry the comedy king Paresh Rawal. The next year, 1980 it was time for Sangeeta Bijlani who starred in a number of Bollywood movies and married cricketer Azharuddin, an affair which created quite a storm. Pamela, Miss India 1982 was more of a celebrity for wrong reasons.

1984 gave us Juhi Chawla who stormed into Bollywood with QSQT with Aamir Khan . In 1985 it was Sonu Walia who did not have a very significant Bollywood career and 1986’s Miss India Mehr Jessia went on to become a leading model and marry Arjun Rampal, the hot Bollywood star.

1992 gave us Madhu Sapre, the leading model and 1993 it was Namrata Shirodkar. The runners up for 1993 Pooja Batra went on to become a Bollywood actress and with Madhu Sapre coming very close to winning the Miss Universe title, Miss Indias started getting more and more attention. And then in 1994, the whole of India with eyes open wide watched Sushmita Sen win the Miss India and Miss Universe title. And even though she was second, Aishwarya Rai went on to be called the World Most Beautiful women for the next decade (atleast in India). Aishwarya Rai won the Miss World title and after 10 years in Bollywood, she is the highest paid Bollywood actress.

The 1997 Runners up Diana Hayden and 1999 runners up Yukta Mookhey won the Miss World titles and tried their luck at Bollywood without much success. After 1994, the year 2000 was a year which saw a bevy of beauties who went on to become Bollywood stars !! Miss India Universe Lara Dutta, Miss India World Priyanka Chopra and Miss India Earth Diya Mirza trio are successful Bollywood actresses. 2001 gave Bollywood Celina Jaitley, 2002 Neha Dhupia and 2004 gave Bollywood its latest bombshell Tanushree Dutta !!

We are sure with years to come the Miss India title will continue to discover beauties who will lighten the silver screen. But will we ever see a beauty like Aishwarya Rai once again ?