Fifteen years after she won the Miss World beauty pageant, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan continues to be the most celebrated Bollywood brand ever. Aishwarya enters her 37th birthday today, and if astrologers are to be believed, she is in for a good time in the coming days.
Here’s the latest interview she gave to the media:
# How’s it feel to be the most beautiful face in Bollywood 15 years after you won your crown?
I’m not very good at handling compliments but I accept it with grace. I’m grateful to God, my audiences and my filmmakers – be it Mani Ratnam (Iruvar, Guru, Raavan), Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas, Guzaarish), Mansoor Khan (Josh), Ashutosh Gowarikar (Jodhaa Akbar), Ram Gopal Varma (Sarkar Raj), Raj Kumar Santoshi (Khakee), Aditya Chopra (Mohabbatein, Dhoom 2) and others who never used just my beauty as the fulcrum. Instead, they kept the beauty and the aesthetics going at the same time in each of the film characters I played.
She’s a fighter. Lisa Ray has discovered new reserves of strength, fortitude and a zest for life in recent times. Here, she looks within and answers some soul searching questions about herself:
# There’s a certain grimness about knowing your body system is misbehaving on you. How do you deal with this?
There is something sinister about your body under siege, under war. But you know the eastern tradition of warriorship, about being courageous enough to be vulnerable and open – it’s not so much about aggression. So I believe in the infinite power of the body to heal itself. I have to actually step back and trust and allow the process.
# When Frank Zappa was asked about his coping with prostate cancer, he famously said “There are good days and there are bad days.” What are your days like?
I have days when I don’t want to get out of bed. Other days, especially when I’m on a steroid high, you can’t tie me down. I’ve been communicating with other Multiple Myeloma members and we laugh. There’s a business exec who says, when he’s on steroids he wants to show up at the office in sweat pants, because his dress pants don’t fit!
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