Due to their iconic roles in numerous movies over the decades, Aishwariya Rai Bachchan and Sushmita Sen have gained a massive fan following. These two beauties once competed against each other in the beauty pageant for the title of the ‘Miss India’ in 1994. In an interview with Karan Johar on his talk show Koffee With Karan, the actress had opened up about her thoughts on winning the beauty pageant. As many as 15-20 girls had taken their name back because Aishwarya was a part of the pageant and no one believed that they would be able to defeat the most beautiful woman.
She said that she took back her name because of the fact that Aishwarya was so beautiful and was already renowned. However, it was her mother who scolded her for doing the same and said that you accepted your defeat without even trying. Sushmita said, “My mother said ok fine let her win. If you think that she’s the world’s most beautiful then loose from her. What’s the point of losing from someone else? Go give it your best shot.”
Sen said, “I don’t compare myself to Aishwarya’s performance, I think she was fabulous on stage. My shooting star went right over my head. When you are competing for anything, it is not just your hard work, because there are 20-30 girls who put in equal or more amounts of hard work.”
After Miss India victory, Sushmita Sen went on to become Miss Universe and Aishwarya Rai was crowned as Miss World in the same year.
Apparently, it was the tie-breaker round that tilted the competition in Sushmita’s favour. Aishwarya was asked the question, “If you have to look for qualities in a husband, would you look for the qualities in Ridge Forrester from ‘The Bold & Beautiful’ or in Mason Capwell from ‘Santa Barbara’?” Aishwarya’s answer was, “Mason. They do have a lot in common, but from what we see, Mason has a very caring side to him, and a terrific sense of humour. And that really gels with my character.”
The question posed to Sushmita was: “What do you know about the textile heritage of your country? How old has it been and what do you prefer to wear personally?” Sushmita answered, “I think it all started with Mahatma Gandhi’s khadi. It has gone a long way since then, but the basics of Indian textile heritage has been from there.” That was the answer that made Sushmita beat Aishwarya by a mere 0.2 percent.
After losing the crown to Sen, Rai was taken aback and felt a little dejected for a while but her friends were there for her. Later, on November 19, the same year, Rai bowed her head to the blue Miss World crown. Sen had patented the hands-on-mouth-in-awe pose and became a pageant favourite. For the first time an Indian had won the Miss Universe crown. Sen proudly claimed the Miss Universe crown.
These two goddesses started this career in the B-town and ever since have been shining brightly in the industry’s universe.
