What is it like to meet Aishwarya Rai? | Quora

PLANE TALES: HOW I MET THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD...AND A FORMER MISS WORLD

In July 2008, I was ending a long business trip with an afternoon flight to Toronto from London on British Airways. I was sitting in business class in my own little pod next to the window, with the screen up (which is the takeoff position). For those who aren't familiar with the set-up, here is a picture.

As I was exhausted, I fell asleep as the rest of the plane loaded and didn't wake up until we were in the air. After waking, I made my way to the washroom to throw some water on my face, but had to wait as it was occupied.

When the door opened, a woman stepped out who had obviously just changed into comfortable pyjamas for the flight. She then looked up at me and said she was sorry to have taken so long. I couldn't reply immediately as I was gobsmacked at how absolutely beautiful she was, even though obviously in a casual state. After mumbling that it was not a problem and watching her walk to her seat it suddenly struck me that it was Aishwarya Rai.

Although I enjoy world cinema and had even toured a studio owned by a client in Dhaka, I was not familiar with all of the top Bollywood stars. However you would have to live under a rock not to know her.

As I was returning back to my seat I looked around the rest of the business class section and realised that I was the only one who was not South Asian. As they were all talking amongst themselves and no one seemed to be an autograph seeking fan, I quickly came to the conclusion that they must all be Bollywood stars.

Upon returning to her seat (middle aisle one up from me), Ms. Rai snuggled up to a rather large handsome man who I later learned was her husband Abhishek Bachchan. Apparently they are the Brad and Angelina of Bollywood.

When I returned to my seat, I lowered my screen and said hello to the gentleman who was sitting next to me. He was very friendly and told me that he was part of a large group of Bollywood stars who were touring certain places with large South Asian populations. They had already been to Trinidad a few weeks before and were headed to Toronto to do an event.

He then proceeded to describe his life as a Bollywood actor. I had some passing familiarity with how things typically worked in Hollywood, having had some actors as clients in my law practice. The working environment that he described seemed to be world's away from the atmosphere I had known. First, Bollywood stars tend to be quite multitalented as along with acting, they are almost always required to sing and dance in most films. Second, they will often have several films they are filming at the same time. He described how at the end of his day, he would receive the next day's scene scripts so that he could memorise and work on the lines. When he arrived at the studio early in the morning, he was met by an assistant in a golf cart who had the day's schedule. He would then be whisked from set to set to either do a scene, practise a new dance routine or song, or actually perform a dance or song. Shooting was under a very strict schedule and once the scene was done, each actor would go to their golf cart to be driven to their next set.

When I asked him if anyone in Bollywood would try the old Hollywood trick of refusing to leave their trailer, he just laughed and said that if anyone tried that, they would only do it once as they would be fired and just not be cast again. He was careful to point out that there was no lack of big egos in Bollywood, it was just that they all took it very seriously and childish behaviour was just not tolerated.

Update 1) Although at the time of originally writing this answer I did not remember the name of the gentleman who was sitting next to me, upon prompting I did a little digging and figured out that it was Ritesh Deshmukh (Riteish Deshmukh ) . As I said in the comments, I remembered him as very intelligent, articulate and polite. I also said that I remembered that he reminded me of a 30 year old Paul McCartney. In support of this, I offer the following two photos:

Update 2: The show in Toronto that this group was appearing at was held at the largest venue in Toronto and was called the The Unforgettable Tour (Unforgettable Tour 2008 ) and featured the following stars (Unforgettable Tour 2008 ). Presumably they were my fellow business class cabin partners, but I have to confess that I only remember the beguiling Ms. Rai (and her husband) and the curious and engaging Mr. Deshmukh. My apologies to those readers who are dedicated fans for not remembering more. Unfortunately, I also don't feel qualified to enter the debate on whether Ms. Rai and her husband are the Indian Brad and Angelina (as Wikipedia and a Toronto South Asian friend later told me).

Update 3: In the comments, I mentioned my favourite plane encounter was when I met my wife. Several people asked me to write about it, which I promised I would do as a reward to myself for getting 1000 upvotes. Well that milestone was hit yesterday so here we go.

It wasn't stormy, but it was a dark night. I was beginning a journey to Iceland with an initial hour and a half AirCanada flight from Toronto to New York's JFK airport. As a veteran flyer, I time everything precisely. Even to the point of trying to find myself at the gate as the last passenger to board. As I handed the agent my boarding pass, I had a moment to look over and see a very attractive woman fast asleep on a bench next to the gate.

Boarding pass and passport checked, I proceeded onto the plane to take my front row window seat.

Being at the front, I could clearly hear the agitated flight attendants discussing the fact that they were missing someone who had gotten a boarding pass but not checked in. If this passenger did not board that meant a long delay as they would need to remove their checked luggage before pulling away from the gate. At that point, I mentioned that they may want to check the boarding area, as I saw someone asleep there. They did and a moment later the woman I saw, came on board. As she was sitting in the aisle seat next to me, I got up and helped her put her bag in the overhead compartment and we took our seats.

The plane then pulled away from the gate and joined the "line-up" for takeoff. My seat mate was still drowsy when she boarded and during the wait for takeoff, she quickly nodded off again. During takeoff, the jostling caused her to shift and put her head on my shoulder. By the time we were at altitude, she was deeply asleep, had wrapped her hands around my bicep, and I could feel her warm breath on my neck.

Now at this time in my life, I had been divorced for about 10 years. Although I had dated some wonderful women, I just hadn't met anyone with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. In fact, shortly before this flight, I had broken up with a someone because I believed that I was better off alone than "settling" for less than everything I wanted out of a relationship. I live a very complicated life, where I travel a great deal and work strange hours. Like the British Empire, the sun never sets on my international law practice. Another complexity was that I had 2 children from my first marriage and loved being a father. It was an experience that I wanted to have again, but this time with a fully engaged co-parent to both my existing children and any new children. Unfortunately, the women that I found myself dating either didn't want to have children or I didn't want to have children with them! In short I had pretty much resigned myself to spending the rest of my life with these dreams unfulfilled.

However, being the romantic sort (while as much as a tax lawyer can ever be romantic), I found myself daydreaming about this beautiful woman who was fast asleep on me. As I breathed her perfume in deeply (Versace Crystal Noir).

I indulged in the temporary fantasy that this was my wife and that we were blissfully in love. Remember, I had no idea if she was married, engaged, involved, interested or gay. Given the black leather pants and raven hair, I had at least eliminated "nun" from the string of possibilities. I knew that she would soon wake up and the fantasy would vanish, so I was enjoying the flight of fancy while I could.

After about 30 minutes, she awoke and proceeded to apologise profusely for having fallen asleep on my shoulder. Gallantly (and truthfully), I assured her that it was completely my pleasure. We quickly fell into conversation and I found out that she had been born and raised in Poland. She had previously lived in London and Dubai but had spent the last 6 or 7 years in the US and worked as a VIP guest manager for one of the top luxury hotels in NYC. Most important, she was single.

When we arrived at JFK, we walked together to the luggage carousel to retrieve her checked luggage. She was going home to Manhattan and I was going to another terminal at JFK to board my onward flight to Iceland. Before we parted, I said, "Well now that we have slept together, maybe we should go out on a date?". To my absolute delight, she enthusiastically accepted and gave me her name and mobile number. By the time I finished my trip to Iceland, we had already talked and texted a number of times and I had arranged for a 3 day trip to NYC. The idea was that we would go out on a date the first day. If it worked out, then we had time for a second and third day together. If it didn't work out, I had plenty of clients to visit which would occupy the remainder of my time.

Our first date was on August 16, 2011 and started by meeting at the rooftop bar of Peninsula Hotel. We sat in the corner table under the painting in this photo.

We then proceeded to Milos restaurant for dinner, where we sat at the table by the window next to this bar.

The first date was fantastic and we met the next day at the BoatHouse restaurant in Central Park. I arrived early with a huge bouquet of flowers and stood at the bar, anxiously waiting for my date to arrive. There was an Australian couple sitting in the chairs pictured here, to whom I told my plane story. The woman boldly predicted that I would marry this woman. The romantic and optimistic me wanted it to be true. The realistic me thought it wasn't likely to happen.

Well, that date went even better than the first and it built from there. From that initial three days in NYC, we were together constantly, getting to know each other. Six weeks later we were engaged and then got married on a beach in Maui in December that year. In April 2014, my wife gave birth to a twin girl and boy. We named our daughter Milania, after the city we were visiting when they were conceived. This December, we will celebrate our 5th anniversary and I am still deeply and madly in love with this woman.

The life lesson here is that sometimes life throws you unexpected opportunities and you have to trust your heart and take a leap.

Edit 4: Well this weekend, we clicked over 3000 likes and as agreed with my wife I will now share a picture of us at our wedding in Hawaii. See, definitely not a nun. Keep it up and I might share a few pictures of the twins!

Our children at 10 weeks

And at 2 years