| Silver and Roses, Henna and Myrrh

Indian Beauties

This anecdote goes back to 2003, when I was working on my novel, A Tale of Ung, which can be read at Ung on this site. I would select beautiful ladies as heroines in my novel, and in my mind's eye, I pictured Indian women. I don't watch movies, so I know little about film stars. I decided to look online for models for my story, and searching Indian actresses, I singled out Aishwarya Rai as the most beautiful. I had no idea that she had already attained fame in the United States or that Americans even knew who she was. So you can imagine my satisfaction when I learned that she had been named Miss World, as well as the most beautiful Miss World of all time, and that she had appeared on the cover of Time and was widely known in America. My ability to pick them had been infallible. It's not as if I joined a fan club and merely mimicked my peers. I found her all on my own.

As for Priyanka Chopra, the first pictures that I saw of her were her Miss World pictures, so I knew from the outset that she was a celebrity.

What I like about Indian women, in addition to their beauty, is their modest, reserved nature. One doesn't hear anything about Indian women drinking, taking drugs and engaging in general promiscuity. I appreciate ladylike decorum.

Aishwarya