Desi Galaxy

[This post is part of Babe of the Month Series. Desi Galaxy's Babe of the month for March 2007 is Aishwarya Rai, and this post is part of the series of posts on Aishwarya Rai's Biography]

Being in the same Industry Aishwarya Knew Abhishek already. We don’t know when the two came closer and when the affair started. They first appeared together in the song ‘Kajra ra’ for the movie Bunty aur Babli, Aishwarya had an special appearance in this song. Ash, Abhishek and Amitabh beautifully choreographed by Saroj Khan has made the song itself a classic. At that time Ash and Abhishek were also working together for J.P. Dutta’s film Umrao Jaan. It is generally believed that working together in this movie brought them closer. They started dating each other. However, it is really surprising that media was unable to catch the two of them together. A few pictures of Aishwarya and Abhishek spending sometime somewhere might have earned a fortune to any film journalist. Still they were unable to produce any photographic evidence of the relationship between two.

Aishwarya and Abhishek never publicly accepted or denied the rumors that they were dating. But there were rumors that the two of them are in love and Abhishek calls Aishwarya on her mobile phone every hour. The media was right about all this and it all came open when Aishwarya’s Mother spoke about how Aishwarya’s astrological signs mis-match with Abhishek. On 14 January 2007, Aishwarya and Abhishek officially announced their engagement.

The two actors appeared in several movies together, in Umrao Jaan Aishwarya Rai was directed by J. P. Dutta who introduced Abhishek to bollywood viewers. Later Abhishek was directed by Mani Ratnam in ‘Guru’, Mani Ratnam introduced Aishwarya in his movie “Iruvar”. They appeared in Dhoom 2, though this time not as a pair.

The astrological hurdles in Aishwarya’s marriage to Abhishek has produced lots of criticism all over. Aishwarya Rai along with her family and the Bachchan family took part in several religious ceremonies in different Temples around India. She married trees to remove the bad affects Mars from her horoscope. A petition was filed in Patna high court demanding the Bachchan and Rai families to publicly apologize for this act.

Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek are getting married this month (March 2007). Their marriage event is expected to be one of the most prestigious weddings in the Indian history.

[This post is part of Babe of the Month Series. Desi Galaxy's Babe of the month for March 2007 is Aishwarya Rai, and this post is part of the series of posts on Aishwarya Rai's Biography]

Aishwarya - Vivek Relationship

Breaking up with Salman Khan was not easier for Aishwarya Rai. Those were difficult days, people noticed the bruises on her body but the glitter of fame hid the bruises on her souls. It is a difficult time for a self respecting confident woman to coupe the after affects of domestic violence. During this time, Vivek Oberoi came in Aishwarya’s life as a friend.

Aishwarya Rai usually refuses to kiss on the screen in her movies but sometimes she does and this is one of such rare occassions when Aishwarya Rai kissed Vivek Oberoi for a scene in the movie ‘Kyon! hogaya na’.

The media tried their best to give a different meaning to their friendship. Vivek, openly expressed his love for the most beautiful Indian woman alive. But, Aishwarya never gave any hint that she is attached with Vivek Oberoi in a romantic way. During this time Vivek also claimed that he had been repeatedly threatened by Aishwarya’s ex-boyfriend Salman Khan. This friendship lasted for three years and Aishwarya finally had to end it up. She never wanted to have anything more than casual friendship with Vivek but apparently Vivek didn’t understand that.

Aishwarya Rai then worked in a movie titled ‘Provoked‘, the story of an Indian girl who suffered from domestic violence and abuse by her husband and ends up in the jail after killing him. While promoting the movie, Aishwarya Rai spoke against domestic violence and confessed that she herself had been a victim.

[This post is part of Babe of the Month Series. Desi Galaxy's Babe of the month for March 2007 is Aishwarya Rai, and this post is part of the series of posts on Aishwarya Rai's Biography]

Aishwarya Salman Affair

While the world was enjoying and praising her performance in ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ Aishwarya was having a serious relationship with Salman Khan. The two stars that people loved so much were in love with each other. The affair started on the sets of ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ and soon there were news everywhere about the two stars dating. The affair lasted for two years and ended in a tragic way.

Salman Khan is well known for showing an obsessively possesive attitude towards his girlfriends. He treated Aishwarya the same way. The media got the lead of this bad treatment when Aishwarya appeared in an award ceremony with a black eye. When asked about it Aishwarya totally dismissed these rumors. Later Aishwarya accused Salman Khan treating her badly and her parents even filed a police complain against Salman Khan for breaking the windows and furniture of their house and beating their door four hours in an intoxicated tone.Their relationship finally ended in March 2002 when Salman Khan abused Aishwarya infront of Abhishek Bachchan and the crew on sets of Ramesh Sippy’s ‘Kuch Na Kaho’. Later he also appeared during the shootings of Aziz Mirza’s Shahrukh-Aishwarya movie, drunk and accused Shahrukh Khan of getting too friendly with his girlfriend. Salman was not able to accept the reality and he continued harassing Aishwarya Rai and finally Aishwarya had to tell media about it.

Salman and I broke up last March, but he isn’t able to come to terms with it, Salman hounds me and causes physical injuries to himself when I refuse to take his calls.

After we broke up, he would call me and talk rubbish. He also suspected me of having affairs with my co-stars. I was linked up with everyone, from Abhishekh Bachchan to Shah Rukh Khan. There were times when Salman got physical with me, luckily without leaving any marks. And I would go to work as if nothing had happened.

Let others say what they want. But every person concerned knows the truth… God is the witness

[This post is part of Babe of the Month Series. Desi Galaxy's Babe of the month for March 2007 is Aishwarya Rai, and this post is part of the series of posts on Aishwarya Rai's Biography]

Aishwarya had become the darling of India, she had offers from bollywood and after giving it some thought she appeared in Mani Ratnam’s Tamil movie Iruvar (1997). The movie was loved by film critics and studens but was a failure at the box office, it is remembered as Aishwarya Rai’s first movie. She got her first Bollywood movie in the same year with the release of Rahul Rawail’s ‘Aur Pyaar Hogaya‘. She won the Screen award for most promising newcomer for her role in this movie. the film didn’t do well at the box office. Aishwarya’s first hit movie was a Tamil-language film, Jeans by S. Shankar. She then appeared in popular Bollywood films Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), Taal (1999) and Mohabbatein (2000).

Particularly interesting is how the media treated her in her early bollywood days. She was attractive, sexy, beautiful and gorgeous but media didn’t praised her as an actress. For example, the Tribune India has a little paragraph about her activities, published on 28th of November 1999:

Aishwarya has appeal

Aishwarya Rai has oodles of sex appeal. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Taal or the long line of filmmakers queuing outside her door is ample proof of this. It seems even the Southie directors are under her spell! This despite her forays into Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar and Ashok Amritraj’s Jeans being damp squibs. Ash is starring in a Telugu film Raavoya Chandamama, a remake of Mann (which was a remake of An Affair to Remember) starring Nagarjuna and Anjana Jhaveri. So where does Ash fit in? In Rani’s sexy one song appearance for a fat sum!

Nursery rhymes like Sing a Song For Sixpence seem like a juvenile joke, eh?

Planet bollywood published a review of Aishwarya’s first super hit Hindi film, ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ and there was only one line about Aishwarya’s performance in the movie:

Aishwarya Rai is brilliant in her dances and adequate in an author-backed role.

[Talking of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, read t-hype's review who recently watched the movie. T-hype is a blogger from Nashville United States and writes about faith, black America and Indian film. ]

To Be Continued…

There are websites devoted to childhood photos of celebrities. Looking at these photos, one feels that how ordinary and innocent these stars looked when they were young. Just like you and me they had homework to do, bigger than universe problems, bad teeth and good friends. While looking for content to post in the Babe of The Month series on Aishwarya Rai, I came across these pictures of her teenage and childhood.

Aishwarya Rai with her brother. Looks like she is 10 or 12 years old and the picture is taken while the Rai family was spending vacations at some hill station.

Aishwarya Rai with mother, celebrating her first birthday party. Her mother Brindya Rai looks a lot like her in this picture.

Aishwarya again with her mother. Looks like she is around 16 or 17 years old in this picture.

Aishwarya Rai the heart throbe of Millions all over the world was born on November 1st 1973 to a middle-class family in Banglore (now Mangalore) in the state of Karnataka. Her father, Krishnaraj Rai was a merchant navy officer who moved to Bombay when Aishwarya was only three years old. Her mother, Brindya Rai was a typical Indian housewife. Raised in a typical strict Indian middle-class family environment, Aishwarya is incredibly smart and deeply traditional. During her school live she proved her smartness by earning higher grades. She did her schooling at Arya Vidya Mandir, Santacruz. After matriculation she enrolled into DG Ruparel College, Matunga, Bombay where her favorite subject was Zoology. She wanted to begin a career in medicine but later she changed her mind after earning 90% marks in her HSC exams. She then changed her career path and joined Raheja College. At that point she started doing modelling as a part time job, but the offers started pouring all over and she decided to give architecture a break and concentrate on modelling.

In the year 1994, she took part in Famina Miss India beauty peagent and was crowned Miss India 1994. She then got the prestigious Miss World crown at Sun City. On her way back home, with crown on her head, she was recieved by thousands of Indians at the airport and lined the streets around her horse driven cavalcade. She told in an interview :

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!

About her career change, she told:

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.

To be Continued…

Sources:
Aishwarya Rai - Wikipedia
Aiswarya Rai’s world - Know More About Aishwarya
Why Aishwarya will never be a star in United States