The beautiful younger child of the
family was born in the South Indian city, but the stay wasn't for too long.
When she was just a four-year-old kid, her dad who happened to be a merchant
navy officer moved to Mumbai (then called Bombay) with the family. His being a
job that needed him to sail regularly, the family for most of the time was a
closely-knit unit of three persons: the mum, Aditya (the elder brother who
recently co-produced Ash's first home production Dil Ka Rishta) and his lovely
little sister.
Ash grew up in the flat in Murnbai, a
vivacious and garrulous child who dreamt a lot but was a really bright student
as well. What was the family like? Simple, and with traditional middle class
values although the two children were encouraged to talk about life and its
attendant facets with both the mum and the dad when the latter was in town.
Candour was the hallmark of the relationship the two youngsters shared with
their parents and, yes, both of them were exposed to all kinds of music.
Aditya was hooked to Western popular
music, while the mother was a keen follower of old Hindi songs. Ash's baptism
to music was through audiocassettes - a feature shared by most others of her
generation - but she was to pursue her interest keenly and learn both
Hindustani and Carnatic music with the passage of time. A young and gifted Ash
also received training in Bharatanatyam, so you now know how her steps alongside
Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas as also her solos in films like
Subhash Ghai's Taal have a mellifluous grace emanating from a trained dancer's
articulate responses to the rhythms of the percussion.
Ash did her schooling from Arya Vidya
Mandir in Mumbai's Santacruz locality. Since her days as a child, here was a
girl who sparkled amidst her contemporaries in the classroom. Usha Kagal, Ash's
class teacher in the third and fourth standards, has some exquisitely tender
memories of her out-of-the-ordinary pupil. "She was a good student, a fine
mixture of beauty and brains," remembers Mrs. Kagal who retired sometime
ago.
Says the visibly affectionate lady:
"I wouldn't say that she was very popular with many other students. It was
perhaps because of jealousy due to her beauty because she was a gorgeous girl
to look at even then." Ash also stood out because of her interest in all
sorts of extra-curricular activities. "She was into games, yoga, and was a
very graceful dancer. In fact, I remember her performance much later when she
was in the ninth standard. We had a show in which she danced, and she just
stole everyone's hearts." The lady who taught Ash reveals a tiny detail
that her celebrity-pupil may not be aware of. "I did not make her the head
girl of the class consciously because I wanted to ensure that it did not go
into her head. I did not want her to be too conscious of her talents," she
recalls. Not only that, she has another fond memory of Ash that she has
treasured for years and, to say the least, it is an unusual one. "She was
very neat in her work, and I have always had this habit of keeping a notebook
or two of each of my students. I still have her third standard Mathematics
notebook which is so remarkably neat and tidy that I have shown it as an ideal
example to my students year after year."
It was when she was in the ninth
standard that the young beauty got her first break in an advertisement. The
modeling assignment was for Camlin Industries, but what it did NOT mean was
that the world of glamour appealed so much to her that she chose to neglect
academics. By now, a young Ash was accustomed to the attention of her male
counterparts. Admirers there were and in plenty, and it is said that she would
get cards and telephone calls from like-aged boys who, at times, proposed
marriage to her! Here, need we add that the elder brother behaved like most
brothers do and kept a close watch on admirers who were besotted with his
sister's looks?
Used to adulation and known to make
heads turn when she walked past in usually simple casuals, Ash remained focused
on her studies, giving rise to high expectations amongst people around her when
she appeared for her ICSE examinations. Call it destiny, or bad luck. She did
not fare as well as she should have, and what the mark sheet reflected
certainly wasn't an indicator of her true merit. The young girl was really
disheartened because she had expected to do much better, but what she surely
learnt from this one episode was that nothing in life could be taken for
granted.
She studied her 11th standard in
Mumbai's Jai Hind College, but it was from D G Ruparel College in the same city
that she completed her 12th standard. Her popularity as a uniquely charming
girl was enhancing with each passing day, but that did not distract her from
academics one bit. Remembers S P Tikekar, a teacher of Chemistry at D G Ruparel
College which has also produced other stars like Urrnila Matondkar and Amrita
Rao after Ash had passed out: "She used to be an absolutely brilliant
girl, and got 97 out of 100 marks in her 12th standard Chemistry examinations.
She was really studious, and used to take pains to do well."
Tikekar fondly recalls that the
college-going Ash never missed her homework, and goes back to the days when he
had started visiting her house to teach her brother to begin with. "She
was a few years junior, and came up to me from time to time with her
problems." Some time later, the old and soft-spoken teacher started giving
tuition to Ash also "for one and a half hours a day, twice or thrice a
week." Back in college where the girl was already ' distinctive,
"everybody in the campus was aware of who she was", recollects the
teacher with a glint in his eyes. The gentleman who teaches in the same
institution today adds: "The way she worked hard to understand her subject
reflected her sincerity which is the key to success. Whatever is needed to be
successful, she had that in plenty. As for her grooming, it shows in the fact
that till today, she respects all her teachers and elders despite being such a
big celebrity"
The clock continued to tick along its
predestined course. Meanwhile, Ash's fate was sculpting novel realities, which
were to change the course of her life forever. The year was 1991, and Ash had
been persuaded to enter the Ford Supermodel contest by a friend of hers. She
surprised everybody - most of all herself - by winning the contest, and it did
not take her long to feature in Vogue magazine once she had been spotted by the
renowned shutterbug Steven Meisel.
The Indian film industry which is quick
to spot such young talents came calling, and she ended up making a special
appearance in the Telugu film Mamagaru that very same year. The film,
incidentally, starred the legendary actor Dasari Narayan Rao. Once this happened,
many could sense that Ash's career would take a new turn most rapidly. But even
when she acted in Mamaguru, the girl had very little idea that it actually
would.
Because of her ravishing beauty,
several makers of ad films had spotted Ash but she continued to be passionate
about academics which she was really bright at. There is a really interesting
story connected with her shooting for Palmolive's ad. The year was 1993, she
had been selected, but Ash is said to have insisted on doing the ad only after
her exams got over which was on the 3rd of November. People around her
criticised her, but she did not budge before being told that the makers of the
ad had finalised a shift which would begin at two in the afternoon on the same
day. Ash went, shot for it, and that was to bring about a huge change in her
fortunes. She became known as the Palmolive girl.
Her much bigger success story, of
course, was the nowfamous Pepsi ad featuring the young Indian superstar Aamir
Khan. This ad also had a second girl: another youngster named Ritu Chaudhary
from New Delhi who was to become famous as Mahima Chaudhary when she joined
films later. The renowned adman Prahlad Kakkar was making the ad and, in it,
Ash had to utter just two sentences: "Hi, I'm Sanju. Got some Pepsi?"
Kakkar who was the one of the first persons to spot this gorgeous beauty says:
"When she was signed, we all thought she was terrific, and I had also
predicted that she would be very big. In fact, I had recommended to Pepsi that
they should sign ' her up for as long as they could but they didn't. Now they
must be regretting it because she is with Coke."
What did Kakkar see in her that
appealed to him instantly? The veteran who has seen an enormous amount of
talent and beauty says that he spotted a "combination of innocence and
sexiness that is rare." Remembers he: "She was just a girl next door
then, but was extremely professional." For the ad that featured Ash for a
mere two and a half seconds, the adman had told the girl that she had to look
"exceptionally sexy for those few moments without that innocence of hers.
She had to look provocative and everybody was supposed to take note of
her." A ` nervous Ash wasn't at all sure that she could pull this one off,
and she ended up giving some 19 retakes before the shot was okayed. With that
small appearance, a star had been born. Her face became really popular
nationwide, a sign of bigger and better things to come.
By the end of 1993, Ash might have
become a very well known face in the world of modeling, but what she did not
lose was respect for her teachers. Mrs. Kagal who taught her during schooldays
remembers the day when the girl walked into the classroom while she was
correcting some ' notebooks. "She hugged me, and wanted to know how we had
reacted to the choice of her career. She also said that she must have gone down
in our estimation, because little did we think that the girl with so much
talent in academics will do modeling," reflects Kagal.
The lady goes on to say: "I told
her not to leave her studies because I believe that she could have made a
serious contribution in her field of academics as well. She said she would not
leave it, and also told me that she wanted to work in films but behind the
camera." Behind the camera? Today, that sounds strange, but then truth
springs such strange surprises that fiction at times can seem boringly
predictable.
During that very period when she went
and met her teacher at her school, Ash who loved Zoology as a subject had moved
on to study architecture at the Rachna Sansad Academy of Architecture in
Mumbai. The reasoning was interesting to say the least. It seems that she
believed that she did not have the sort of dedication to do justice to a
full-time career in medicine and hence took up architecture. Ash was to fall in
love with architecture as time went by, but she could not complete her course.
Things happened in her life at a rapid pace: she went on to become the 1st
runners up at the Femina Miss India contest, and was subsequently crowned Miss
World in 1994.
The entire nation was ecstatic when the
latter happened, and that included her teachers from school Mrs. Kagal and her
colleague Vana Menon. The two had gone with students from her school near
Mumbai's Otters Club where they stood with a banner in their hands on which was
written "Congratulations from Arya Vidya Mandir." Ash, the newly
crowned Miss World, was being taken around in a chariot while the entire nation
watched her. "She saw us with the banner from the chariot, and screamed
'Mrs. Kagal, Mrs. Menon.' That well-mannered child I taught during her
schooldays remembered us."
