Life will take its toll on all of us. We get injured, we get old. It's really sad to try to run away from these harsh realities of life. Looks are not everything. I am not going to look beautiful all the time.
No one is perfect and everyone is different, but everyone one is beautiful in their own way and that's what makes us special.For me, it went beyond being a beauty queen. For me, it was about being the 20-year-old girl from India on international platform and a lot of people actually would assume that I wasn`t even educated in India because of the way I'd speak.
Even when I was Miss World, I did all the dressing up I could, so the pretty face thing was done. But it was never about just looking pretty with the crown, I always wanted to make it more than that - I wanted to make it about beauty with a purpose. So I carried that into my films as well.
Fame is directly related to the kind of support you have from an audience and the love and support I have from audience is so immense and so huge, that the percentage of negativity is so small compared to that that it would be very easy for it to lose itself.
My biggest concern is always the students who are working toward a certain career - when they limit themselves to just that one option. They need to know that the world is huge - it's an ocean, and there are so many options. It's not the end of the world if they don't get to pursue an apparent childhood dream.
I don't know about changing my perspective, because motherhood is such a glorious blessing and I am very thankful for that. It is such a beautiful experience. I so strongly recommend it. It's bliss, love, and fulfillment of another level.
I've always been the kind of person that if I take on anything professionally it means commitment to me, so you take it on if you can commit to it and if you know you can accommodate and give your best to it and that's what you do, and I have always done that throughout my life - before marriage, after marriage, before motherhood, after motherhood.
In terms of finding that first international recognition of my work, coming back to Cannes is such a milestone in my life because it began actually with 'Devdas'.
I was studying to be an architect, I wasn't plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously.