Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

The actress says, “I don’t think it would be right on my part to gloat in this very generous observation. There have been many actors and actresses who have continued working post marriage for years. However, in the recent times, there has been a preconceived idea that probably leading ladies would not continue to work. I never paid attention to it. Even as a single girl, I never really thought about it. I never even wondered what will happen to me after marriage.

“I chose acting as a profession. Even at the beginning of my career, I never thought ‘Will it would be wise for me to play this role as a new girl? Should I do this later? Is a very girly role?’ I’m the same girl who did IRUVAR at the beginning of my career. I didn’t say give me four songs and short skirts and let me just jump around. That’s the kind of mindset with which I kept going very strongly.”

The 36-year-old further added, “Having said that, I must say that it does feel really nice that I have got meet a lot of like-minded professionals. I might want to work after marriage but there have to directors who want to work with me. There have to be directors who have to see me in roles and characters. I’m so blessed. It’s so wonderful that my faith has been kept in the professionals that I have worked with. Directors like Shankar, Mani Ratnam and Sanjay Leela Bhansali came to me with scripts. They didn’t say ‘Now you are married. What should we do with your role?’ None of the directors thought that.”

We hope she continues working in the same way for many more years and directors keep on offering her different roles.

I have been to Macau very recently and it is a beautiful place and surely a great venue. Of course with presence of ever so gorgeous Aishwarya Rai, the city of Macau must have been the best place to be in, on June 11th’2009. The IIFA awards 2009 journey continued up to 13th June when the major award ceremony function took place.

Aishwarya Rai walked the green carpet at IIFA awards 2009 in exuded style in a grey silk frock with mock neck ruched bodice and structured pleated skirt. She accessorized with black peep toe heels, diamond drop earrings, a gold bangle in her left arm, a black strap watch in her right arm and a glittery silver clutch. Her medium brown hair, styled in loose curls, draped her shoulders. Her makeup included glossy pink lipstick, golden eye shadow and lots of mascara. She really looked very pretty that night. Oh i could die to catch a glimpse of her!

Day one saw Madame Tussauds wax replica of Amitabh Bachchan at the Venetian Macao Hotel Resort which was sent by Madame Tussauds Hong Kong to honor the IIFA brand ambassador, Amitabh Bachchan. Aishwarya and Abhishek joined Amitabh on stage to be photographed with the replica. Let’s have a look at some of the pics from the green carpet and the replica photos…shall we?

Amitabh Bachchan inaugurated the 10th edition of the prestigious event by planting a lotus flower, the official flower of both India and Macau. I never knew about this similarity between the two. So some general knowledge passed on via entertainment. Amitabh mentioned about the attention brought to India by the Oscar-winning British movie “Slumdog Millionaire“. He added that India has as much talented people as found in other parts of the world. Indian creativity is in no way less than creativity from any other part of the world. He believes that there are many other stories and ideas which needed to be explored. One the stars of “Slumdog Millionaire”, Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala said that Indian films are more dramatic and express themselves with more color than the Hollywood films. Ashutosh played the role of Slaim in Danny Boyle‘s tale of rags to riches.

Okay, Day three, June 13th’ 2009. It is time for the award function night. Guess what, Aishwarya Rai won two achievements award that night. Oh man, these were no small awards in fact they were even bigger than actress of the year of award. Aishwarya won the “Golden Decade” award for her memorable performances in the past 10 years, beating off competition from Rani Mukherjee, Preity Zinta, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. In other words, she was named as the “Star of the Decade“. Along with her, Shahrukh Khan was named as the “Actor of the Decade” which i guess he really deserved.

The second award that Aishwarya received is called “Outstanding Contribution by Indians in International Cinema“. It is a newly introduced award category this year. Aishwarya’s work in “Pink Panther 2” and “Provoked” has got her rolling in Hollywood tinsel town. She is the most talked about celebrity world over from Bollywood. Aishwarya shot to global recognition with few international projects recently and am sure many more projects will follow. Apart from Aishwarya, another recipient of this prestigious award will be our Oscar award winner music composer guru, A.R. Rehman. Nobody has forgotten his work in the big movie “Slumdog Millionaire”. Of course, we Indians know him well, since long for his other masterful work in previous movies.

By the way, Abhishek Bachchan also win an IIFA this year. He took the “Best Comedian” award for the gay themed movie “Dostana“. With his acting skills and his new matured looks, i do hope that we will see him in the Best Actor category next year around. Of course Mani Ratnam’s “Raavan” will give him that platform this year.

Alright, so this was great IIFA awards for Aishwarya Rai and am really happy for her. Hope the trend continue in years to come and she wins more and more awards.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

In the recent few days i have heard about a lot of rubbish like Katrina Kaif replacing Aishwarya Rai in so and so advertisement, Kareena Kapoor dethroning Ash from top position etc. I think it is time to answer the critics with the best shot on who is the most powerful of all Bollywood actress. The answer has been unanimous. The most powerful actress in Bollywood is Aishwarya Rai once again!

Despite losing some advertisements and endorsements and even despite some recent unsuccessful movies, Aishwarya Rai was voted and chosen as India’s number one actress out of hundreds. She got the highest votes in a recent survey and she has proved to everyone that she still rules the Bollywood film industry. This survey was carried on a large scale by pretty famous Hansa Research agency in order to measure the “Celebrity Power in India”. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan topped the list and managed to outrank likes of  Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and even Madhuri Dixit for that matter. Wow! Isn’t that amazing?

If you remember, recently Aishwarya Rai was also honored with Padmashree award for her outstanding contribution to Indian cinema. The popularity of Aishwarya Bachchan is not ceasing down at all. With awards and prestigious recognition, she has brought pride and prestige to herself and to the Bachchan family and of course to India as well.

By the way, if you are wondering on what factors did Hansa Research agency chose Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as the most powerful actress, well they test this in categories like popularity, presence in the media, power of persuasion, and overall image through a survey. Almost ninety-nine percent of respondents recognized Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. The other one percent were probably just not interested in her, but probably still knew who she was. The poll helped to confirm the research from a recent study by Celeb Track. This poll rated Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan as the most powerful people in Bollywood.

It’s just not my voice in here, but millions feel that at the moment, no actress can match the level of success that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has already reached. It is not just her Bollywood accomplishments that makes her the best known actress from India. She has worked in many projects in Hollywood as well plus she is well known in modeling arena. Everybody in world knows her. She is not just here in India, in fact she is everywhere.

I personally believe that we are yet to see the best of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Hoping to see best of Aishwarya Rai in her forthcoming films like Mani Ratnam’s Raavan.

Aishwarya Rai

The Bachchan family seems to have all the reason to be happy. After all, the tag of the Padma Awards seems hard to be leaving from the family. Amitabh Bachchan himself is an awardee of Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. His wife, Jaya Bachchan, is an awardee of Padma Shri, and father, Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan, had been conferred with Padma Bhushan. And now Ash simply adds another feather to the cap. Ahem! now that’s Bachchan’s family for you.

Besides Aishwarya Rai, our Bolywood’s real king, Akshay Kumar also got Padma Shri award 2009. He and wife, Twinkle, certainly had a great joy as well. Veteran actress and dancing queen of yester-years, Helen, was also bestowed with the Padma Shri for her contribution to art and cinema. Famous playback singer of yester-year, Shamshad Begum, and director of the central board of Reserve Bank of India, Ashok Shekhar Ganguly were among other prominent persons to get the prestigious award from the president.

Dr. Kakodkar received the Padma Vibhushan awards for his contribution to the field of nuclear science and technology.

Padma Awards, that is to say, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri aka Padmashree are given for exceptional and distinguished service in any field including service rendered by Government servants.

Our heartiest congratulations to our queen of hearts, Aishwarya Rai and kind Akshay Kumar for this achievement. Truly well deserved.

Update:I did manage to get some scans of the beautiful actress being awarded the Padma Shri award. And some sphotos of others moments from the function as well. Hope you enjoy ‘em.

Aishwarya Rai

I do hope you have heard about Forbes.com. It’s one of the most popular, American publication, online magazine on net globally. But i this post is not about discussing how big Forbes magazine is. In fact Forbes recently made a list of most bankable actors and actresses in world. And believe it or not, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is the top Bollywood star on that list.

According to Forbes, Aishwarya Rai is the most bankable actress from Bollywood in world.  The list also include the khans i.e. Shahrukh Khan, Aaamir Khan, Salman Khan, Irrfan Khan and Hrithik Roshan but they were no match for Aishwarya whatsoever. If you have been keeping up with the bollywood news, you must have noticed that Aishwarya Rai’s bollywood ratings have gone down big time in bollywood. However Forbes list proves the bollywood’s ranking wrong by naming Ash as the top bollywood actress in their list. And why not? She is well recognized as far as International Cinema is concerned. Her last three movies namely Mistress of Spices (2005), The Last Legion (2007) and the recently released Pink Panther 2 (2009), certainly caught the attention of many cinema lovers, around the world.

Her stature in the cinema world bloomed to a great extent after her marriage with actor Abhishek Bachchan. Following her contribution to the field of cinema, Aishwarya was even honored with the prestigious Indian award “Padmashree” in January’2009.

Forbes list actually consisted of 1,411 actors from around the globe and Aishwarya ranked 387. Also, she is the only Indian female in the list, so that’s a true testament to girl power right there. Among male Bollywood actors, Aamir is ranked highest at 540th in the global list, followed by Shahrukh (735th), Salman (753rd), Irrfan Khan (825th) and Hrithik Roshan (1059th).  The great Khans seriously have a lot of work to do to catch up to Aishwarya Rai.

By the way, American actor of the Indian origin, Kal Penn who starred as actress Tabu’s son in the movie “The Namesake” has also been named in the Forbes list. And he is at 476th position. So that is higher than the rest of the Bollywood actors. But i didn’t name him along with the rest because he is not a Bollywood actor. And if you are windering who topped the list all over, it’s the great actor, Will Smith, followed by Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Angelina Jolie.

Aishwarya Rai did comment on the rankings. She said “Me the most bankable Bollywood star in Hollywood? Thank you! I must confess that any acknowledgment of hard work makes me feel content. In all humility, I want to thank all those who feel I’m bankable.” Indeed all her hard work is paying off!