Apparently before 2004 she was an actress in Indian films only, which emanate from the so-called Bollywood, or Bombay Hollywood, film industry.  Since then she has gone western too and has played in some Hollywood-funded movies, like Pride and Prejudice and Mistress of Spices.  She appeared on the cover of Time as one of the 100 most influential Asians.  She married recently, for the first time, to actor Abhishek Bachchan.

I did not become a fan of Aishwarya Rai, as Tom Pain, this website’s pet pig, would have you believe, merely because Hollywood said I should.  He avers in a recent essay in the rebuttal section that Americans, including me I suppose, merely lap up what Hollywood offers, blindly and docilely.  He goes on to imply that, were it not for that, a whole number of actresses whom he lists in order to insult, including Aishwarya, whom he calls ‘scary’, would not have attained stardom.  In other words, Hollywood is creating mythical beauties with one eye on the till.

As usual, Pain was uttering abject garbage.  I’ll tell you how I became acquainted with the magnificent Indian beauty.  It was in 2003, when I was working on my novel.  I wanted to select pictures on the web that I could use to visualize the characters in my novel.  The heroine of my novel is a beautiful dark lady with long black hair whom I had always visualized as an Indian.  I consider Indian women the most beautiful of all, and also they are much less likely to be afflicted with the vices common among western actresses—drinking, drug-addiction, sexual profligacy, obscene language, etc.  They are usually very ladylike.

So I looked up dozens of Indian actresses on Yahoo Images, not only Aishwarya Rai, but also Simran, Kareena Kapoor, Malaika Arora, Juhi Chawla, Priyanka Chopra, Sneha, Riya Sen, Kajol and others.  Finally, I selected Aishwarya Rai.

At the time I had no idea that Aishwarya Rai was already or would soon be known in the West.   I don’t go to movies or watch television.  I merely assumed that her fame was limited to the Indian subcontinent.  It was only later that I found out about the cover of Time and her appearance on American television shows.  This, to me, confirmed my ability to call them, when it comes to gorgeous women.  I am a very shrewd judge, I thought to myself.

So in no way was my choice dictated by Hollywood.

As for the idea that Aishwarya is ‘scary’, just let me say that she doesn’t scare me.  I love her.  But I am partial to the pictures that depict her in Indian apparel, like this one and this one and this one.

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