After Aishwarya was born, her parents moved to Mumbai where she attended the Arya Vidya Mandir high school in Santa Cruz. Rai then entered Jai Hind College at Churchgate for one year, and then moved to Ruparel College in Matunga to finish her "HSC" studies. She did well in school and planned to become an architect.

She can speak several languages, including Tulu, Hindi, English, Marathi and Tamil .While pursuing her studies in architecture, Aishwarya began modeling on the side. In the 1994 Miss India contest, she won the second place (behind Sushmita Sen), and went on to win the Miss World title the same year, where she also won the Miss Photogenic award. She abandoned her studies after winning the pageant and spent one year reigning as Miss World in London.

After winning the Miss World title she stopped with her studies and pursued a modeling career. Aishwarya was pursued by many brands and played in a lot of commercials. Her biggest commercial at the time was for a soft drink campaign, and after she started being noticed by filmmakers.

Aishwarya made her acting debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, ¨Iruvar¨ (1997) with Mohanlal, and was introduced to Bollywood in the film, ¨Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya¨ opposite Bobby Deol, which also released that year; the film didn't do well at the box office.

However, her third project, S. Shankar's Tamil film, ¨Jeans¨ (1998) was a critical and commercial success, earning her the Filmfare Best Actress Award South.

She went on to appear in many Bollywood films; a few successful films of her career include ¨Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam¨ (1999), which earned the actress her first Filmfare Best Actress Award and¨Taal¨ (1999), which gave her another nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare; her performances in both the films were lauded. In 2000, she played a supporting role in the hit films ¨Mohabbatein¨ and ¨Josh¨. Later that year, she starred in the Tamil film ¨Kandukondain Kandukondain¨, which won her positive reviews.

After 2002, the only was up for Aishwarya. In 2002, she appeared alongside Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bansali's lavishly produced ¨Devdas¨. The film attracted overseas attention as well, receiving a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. It was during this time that she garnered the attention of the West as an Indian actress and went on to appear in a few Hollywood projects. ¨Devdas¨ went on to become the highest grossing film of the year both in India and overseas, earning the actress her second Filmfare Best Actress Award.

As her name gained popularity overseas, she was chosen by Time magazine in 2004 as one of the World's "100 Most Influential People", and appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Asia Edition (TIMEasia) in 2003. She was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile on January 2. A month later she appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. She also featured on Oprah's "Women Across the Globe" segment.

Not only in Bollywood, but you can often watch Aishwarya in Hollywood productions, if not in other overseas productions. Her first foreign film, ¨Bride and Prejudice¨ released in 2003. The film was an Indian version of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. Her next overseas venture was ¨The Mistress of Spices¨, and the American production ¨The Last Legion¨, where you can see her next to big names like, Sir Ben Kingsley and Colin Firth.

Movies aside, Aishwarya is also one of the most asked women for different endorsements. Her biggest till date of course being the L´Oreal campaign.

Her private life was almost as hectic as her professional life. After a stromy romance with actor Salman Khan, Aishwarya found love with also actor, Vivek Oberoi. But the relationship did not last. You know what they say, three times is a charm, and charm it was with actor Abhishek Bachchan. The two met during the filming of their First movie together ¨Kuch No Kaho¨ (2003) The movie didn´t do well, because the people claimed that there was no chemistry between the actors but they were very wrong. Abhishek didn´t just turn out to be her steady partner on screen, but as well off screen. The two married April 20th 2007 and have been inseparable ever since.

Nejla Karatas 

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written by me, August 11, 2008

She is the number 1

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