ASHWARYA' BIOGRAPHY

Ashwarya Rai is one of the most famous heroines of the present time. She came into lime light in the year 1994 when she was crowned the Miss World representing India. Slowly the whole world came to came to know about her and she started her journey towards fame.
Ashwarya Rai was born on 1st November, 1973 in Mangalore (Karnataka) to Krishnaraj Rai and Vrinda Rai. She represents the bunt community, which is mostly found in the coastal Karnataka and speaks the Tulu language. She can also speak Hindi, English, Marathi, Kannada, Urdu and Tamil also. She is nicknamed as Ash, Aishu and Gullu. Her most favorite film is Casablanca. Madhuri Dixit and Preity Zinta are among her very good friends.
Her father was a Marine Engineer and her mother was a writer by profession. She has an Elder brother Aditya, working in Merchant Navy. Her early childhood passed in the Mangalore. Since her father was constantly on the ship due to his professional commitments, she used to live with her mother and brother. She was a very talkative child. As a child she was exposed to lot of music. Her family got relocated to Mumbai, when she was 4 years old. There she started her schooling at Arya Vidya Mandir at Santacruz; there she was made the Head Girl of the school as she was a very brilliant student. She started her modeling career, when she was studying in the 9th grade; her first commercial was for Camlin Pencils. After that she moved to Ruparel College, Matunga and secured over 90% marks in her HSC examinations. Meanwhile she continued her modeling career. She took her lessons in classical dance (bharatnatyam) and music (classical Hindustani and carnatic) for near five years, while she was in her teens. She was inclined to the fine arts since an early age.
First ever she met with a movie star was in a grocery store where she was with her mother while she was tapped on her shoulder by none other than Rekha in person. Rekha recognized her from her modeling advertisements; she complimented Ashwarya on her beautiful looks and wished a very good life for her. She wanted to pursue medical profession as her favorite subject in the college was Biology and Zoology. She completed her college with flying colors but somehow she could not pursue the medical stream. Then she decided to become an Architect and got herself admitted at Raheja College of Architecture at Mumbai by this time the modeling assignments were also pouring in. While studying she continued her modeling assignments.
The Pepsi campaign and Garden assignments made her very popular by that time and she started to take her modeling assignments seriously. She was known to be the Coca Cola girl of the Middle East and South Asia. Before becoming famous she given audition for some TV serials but was rejected. Then in the year 1994 she decided to contest for the Miss India pageant. She participated in the contest and lost to Shusmita Sen and became the runner up to the title. As a runner up she was made to represent India in Miss World contest in Sun City and here she won the title in the same year and immediately shot to the limelight. During the course of the contest she won the Miss Photogenic title also.
After her stint was over as Miss World she was flooded with the offers from the film industry some of them were from very big names of the industry, all promising her lead roles. Now she fell for it. But made her choices very carefully, she started her film career in the year 1997 with Mani Ratnam the famous and legendary film director of South India. Her first film was ‘Iruvar’ a Tamil film with Mohanlal and Tabu. The film was critically acclaimed by all. In the Bollywood she started her career in the same year with Rahul Rawail with the film ‘Aur Pyar Ho Gaya’, this film failed at the box office but assured her a best debutant award. Then came her film ‘Jeans’ (1998) and ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ (1999) and after that she never looked back.
At present she is the highest paid actress in Indian film industry who has won more than 100 awards since she was crowned Miss World and most photographed actress of the recent time. She has worked in many International and Indian regional films.
She has acquired an iconic stature in South Asia and also has an offbeat fan following in Pakistan. She is very popular in Arab Countries and caused a traffic jam in Dubai for the whole day while she was shooting a commercial for soap. She has worked in more than fifty music videos till date.
She was appointed as a jury in the Cannes International Film Festival (2003); she is the first Indian actress to do so.
In 2004 she participated in the carrying of the Olympic flame and in the same year ashwarya became the first Indian actress to have her own statue at London’s Madame Tussauds museum.
Till now she has appeared in the cover page of many international magazines like Time, Hello, Rolling stones etc.
In the summer of the year 2005 limited edition of Barbie Dolls inspired by Ashwarya and her costumes were introduced only in Britain, which sold out instantly and now considered as a rare collectable. Has more than 17000 websites dedicated to her. In the year 2005 a new Tulip species was named after her.

PERSONAL LIFE :

Her zodiac sign is Scorpio. She is five feet seven inches tall.She is very fond of watches.
She likes composed jacket and figure fit gowns as formal wear and chikan salwaar kameez for informal wear, Jeans and T-shirt would do very well in the category.
She hates anything that is finicky and decorative. Her food habits are very simple according to her; she can survive on plain rice, dal and vegetables.
She does not follow dieting.
She is always shown in her music videos, films festooned with jewelry but in real life she is does not like them much.
She loves her family and with the family a select group of friend circle makes her happy. Cockroaches make her scare, she hates them.
She hates the grapevine and insincerity. She also likes the qualities as honesty, strength of character and lots of chocolates. As a devoted Hindu she goes to Siddhi Vinayak mandir devoted to Lord Ganesha whenever she gets time.It is believed by certain group of people and the media that during the filming of ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ ashwarya started dating her co-star of the film, Salman Khan, many things were written about this relationship but she rejected those rumors and when she had a black eye, the media cried foul claiming that it was due to the physical assault meted out to her by her boy friend Salman Khan but Ashwarya denied the story and claimed that she had a fall from the staircase and the claims made by the media regarding manhandling of her was nothing else but a juicy gossip, as she was quoted by the media as the woman of substance, so it unlike a woman of substance to calmly suffer any violence ever. Slowly this relationship was over and Ashwarya even refused to work with the actor.
Recently in some sections of media reports were published regarding appearance of an audio tape in which Salman was issuing threats to the actress before 2002.Vivek Oberoi is another guy with whom the actress was linked for some time by the press it gained fire when the duo were spotted by the journalists in a disco in Calcutta where they spend the whole night. After that Vivek called a press conference and alleged that Salman has threatened to kill if he does not leave to mix up with her girl friends including Ashwarya. They (Ashwarya and Vivek) were friends and that promised the press a juicy gossip, but they could not carry this story too far.
Vivek presented Ashwarya with a puppy named Sunshine. Recently in the month of January, 2006 a news broke out whish claimed that the relationship between Ashwarya and Vivek is over and also the old dispute between Salman and Vivek Has ended.
Gone past the January, 2006 and another news getting hot, hotter that Ashwarya and Abhishek Bachchan are planning to get married. This gained momentum during the shooting of ‘Umrao Jaan’ in Lucknow when they were spotted together in parties and other gatherings. Then the birthday party of Abhishek where it is claimed that Ashwarya was introduced to the family members. After few days Abhishek’s uncle went to Bangalore to their family astrologer to get the horoscopes of Abhishek and Ashwarya matched. Most recently the couple was again spotted in Varanasi to perform some Puja believed to be Mangal Dosh nivaran puja which was performed at Sankat Mochan Mandir in the presence of senior members of Bachchan family and well covered affair by the press and the TV.
It is being speculated that the couple is engaged and going to tie the nuptial knot sometime in 2007. At present the press is busy collecting the views of the fans that how the pair would look if they get married.