Aishwarya Rai had once revealed what she was thinking around the time she had participated in the Miss World pageant of 1994.
Before making her acting debut with Iruvar, Aishwarya Rai was already a known name in the show business. She was the first runner-up at the Femina Miss India pageant in 1994, losing the crown to Sushmita Sen. However, she later won the Miss World crown that same year.
But Aishwarya did not see the most positive signs around her when she was to participate in Miss World. In an old interview with BBC, Aishwarya had revealed the uncanny similarities that she saw between the two events, starting for the heaps of expectations put on her.
She said, "Uh oh, the signs are the same as Miss India, they were exactly the same. There was this whole level of expectations from me. Strangely and wonderfully, the same thing happened at Miss World. Even though you go as an absolutely non-entity.
No one judges you there. You are representing your country. Within that month, I had become very very popular and there was a lot of Indian-international press. Among the select few contestants, I was billed as a very strong contestant and the possible winner. I thought this can't be happening again to me. I don't quite like the feel of it." After she lost the Miss India crown to Sushmita, Aishwarya said that whole 'tamasha' was put up in the media, pitting the two against each other.
However, there were some smaller signs too. "Just before I left for Miss India, the zipper on my final gown had broken. These are little things, not that I am superstitious. So my zip had split and my gown was dropped there by the designer to Goa. The same thing happened during Miss World, on the evening that I was flying out. It was the final trial, the zip split and it all had to be repaired. It came in later that it rained here, it rained there. I was like this is ridiculous," she added.
Aishwarya did end up winning Miss World and remains among the handful women from India who have been honoured with the crown, including Yukta Mookey, Diana Hayden, Reita Faria, Manushi Chillar and Priyanka Chopra. That year, Sushmita Sen also won the Miss Universe crown in a double win for India.
