With modelling, a lot happens behind the scenes; all the fittings and hair and makeup. Then the runway takes two minutes - you just walk out and come back in!
Business analytics or predictive modelling is a $100 billion industry, and $41 billion is spent on outsourced business analytics every year. I think that's about twice the size of the movie industry - it's really big.
It is so common in middle-class families to consider modelling and acting not serious.
As a child, I had no idea that I would end up in the film industry. My ambitions changed from wanting to join the army like my grandfather to taking up merchant navy as a career to running for India, and finally, investment banking while I was a student of economics honour. But during my college days, I began to get offers for modelling.
If I were a star kid, I wouldn't have tried so many things. I would have done theatre and directly joined movies. I did radio and TV shows because I had to carve my own way. Outsiders like me have to reach Bollywood through modelling, theatre, or radio.
In modelling, it's very hard to keep in touch with the people you knew when you started.
Modelling asks you to be conscious of your outer self, but with acting, you have to let that go.
I remember, when I was modelling in Japan, the agency would tell us that some guy wanted to take all the girls out to dinner, and I would be the one girl who didn't go - I didn't want to go out with a stranger.
It's extremely difficult and very challenging to be a woman in film and television. Just showing up in this business forces you to know yourself. But I learned how to deal with rejection and get tough when I was working as a model - it taught me how to put myself out there. In a way, my time modelling was a preparation for life.
Modelling was not very satisfying for me. I came to London to model, and I fell in love with the theatre. I was eating yoghurt every day so that I had the money to go to the theatre. I saw everything. It's still my dream to be on stage in London.
