Two consecutive Indian Fashion Weeks have left behind images of beautiful women and exotic clothes on our minds. Who are these purveyors of the beauty standard, what are they really like under their make-up and away from the cameras? Anuradha SenGupta sought answers from international supermodel Ujjwala Raut.
Anuradha SenGupta: It has been said that you want to come back home to India?
Ujjwala Raut: Oh, Yes! I always tell everybody that I want to be back home because I want to do something else besides modeling. And I am finding ways to come back. I want to eventually settle in India.
Anuradha SenGupta: Ujjwala is one of the few Indian models who are nurturing a career of international standards and who are working with a host of brands including YSL. For the two India Fashion Weeks this year, she was definitely the star or in fashion jargon, the supermodel. At 27, Ujjwala is a veteran.
Ujjwala, how have the past two weeks been like for you? Is it like a blur of people, colours, sounds, lights and camera? Are you on autopilot?
Ujjwala Raut:: It has been quite hectic and it has been great at the same time. It was not blurred with people because I have worked in India and I still do, and more or less I know everybody here. It is exhausting though, especially after having a baby when I took a break from modeling. It was then that I realised that I had been following a hectic schedule.
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Anuradha SenGupta: What made you nurture a career abroad? We do hear of Indian models going abroad and finding it difficult, for whatever personal reasons, and leave it halfway.
Ujjwala Raut: You need a lot of determination. The competition is so tough; there are not only girls from one country but there are girls coming from all over the world like from Brazil, Ukraine, America, France. There is a lot of competition and it is quite tough because you are away from home and you do not have your family with you.
You live in a country having a language, which you do not speak. I for myself started my career in Paris and I think I was lucky as it was the right time for me to have gone there. None of the Indian girls or Asian girls was accepted then. But when I went there were a whole lot of Brazilian girls modeling and everybody thought I was a Brazilian. However, when I spoke they thought I did have an Indian accent. I blended in with the modeling circuit over there.
One important thing: if you want to nurture an international career you have to be young. Girls start their career at 17-18 and I was still 21 when I got there. I had the inspiration to do something to achieve what I could.
It does get hard though because you when you are living in India and have a good life. You have a driver, a cook. And then you go to a foreign country where you have nothing and start form the bottom again. All you have is your manager and your agency, which is like a family and everything for you.
Anuradha SenGupta: How did your family react to this decision that you made of going abroad for your modeling career?
Ujjwala Raut: I did not tell my mother that I was leaving, I just took off. I used to travel a lot within India and abroad; I used to go for shoots to Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. My parents were not seeing me most of the time as it was. When I told my mother that I was going to Paris, she thought that I was just going for a show. I called her after reaching Paris. If I had told her this in person she would never agreed to that.
Anuradha SenGupta: Your family does not hail from a fashion world, right?
Ujjwala Raut: Yes, my father is in the police department and my mother is a homemaker.
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Anuradha SenGupta: How close are you to your roots? Are you now in a different world and your family in a different world? Do the two worlds overlap?
Ujjwala Raut: It is difficult because they are never going to understand and I completely respect that because that's how they were brought up. That's the life they live and I live a completely different life with a different set of people, traveling all over the world. So I think it is not going to be very easy for that two different worlds that we live in to blend. And I just think its fine like that, each left to its own.
Anuradha SenGupta: You belong to both the worlds, don't you?
Ujjwala Raut: Yes, I do. I know my parents are not going to change but I can change myself.
Anuradha SenGupta: Did they come to see you walk the ramp at the Mumbai Fashion Week?
Ujjwala Raut: Yes, my mother came and had a nice time with me and my baby. My father did not come because being a policeman it is difficult for him to accept fashion and the clothes we wear for the shows. But it is all right; I would rather that he does not come for my shows.
Anuradha SenGupta: Is the fashion industry different abroad from that in India?
Ujjwala Raut: It is very different. You have to give your 100 per cent to what you are doing abroad. There is no room for excuses. Besides, there are parties and social events to take part in. You have to maintain your clientele and you really get exhausted doing that. But things are done in a very professional manner there. You get every thing, including shoes and undergarments, for a show. There is a big team working on your hair and make-up. Sometimes you just walk in five minutes before a show starts, because you will have just done a show for another designer or brand. Things happen so promptly! 10 people will just jump on you, five to do your make-up and five to style your hair.
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Anuradha SenGupta: I saw you walk the ramp for the Manish Arora and the Rohit Bal shows; you had your nose in the air and you had an aloof look. Is that how the way you walk the ramp. Is it a way of concentrating or is it the way a model is supposed to look, a desirable creature?
Ujjwala Raut: Exactly, a model is supposed to look desirable. People cannot touch you; they can only look at you. And as for my aloof look, it is because we are taught to look that way abroad. People should look at you and say I want to be like her. You have to give that kind of impression; that you are focused on the cameras because while you are walking your pictures are being taken at the same time.
You should not look at the audience and get distracted. I also try not to distract my self with anything when I walk the ramp, I want be focused on the walk and the cameras. Besides, it is nice to be elegant.
Anuradha SenGupta: Did you think you were a beautiful girl when you were growing up?
Ujjwala Raut: No, not at all. However, I must tell it is very funny that I don't have a single childhood photograph because my mother thought that I was not pretty enough. All my sisters have childhood pictures but I do not have any.
Anuradha SenGupta: Does your mother think that you are pretty now?
Ujjwala Raut: Yes, she does. And it has taken a lot of years to get where I am. It was al due to the grooming that went to it, which included lessons on the way you talk, the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you eat and the way you sit.
Anuradha SenGupta: There are a lot of young girls watching you, do you think beauty is what you are born with or something you make?
Ujjwala Raut: Sometimes you can be naturally beautiful. There are many girls who are just 16 and they look naturally beautiful abroad. However, in India it takes a while for the girls to mature and realise what they are capable of and what they can do. It took some time for me as well, as I hail from a completely raw background.
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Anuradha SenGupta: How do you explain your international success?
Ujjwala Raut: I have been told abroad in the modeling circuit, “Oh! You don’t look like any of those Miss Indias we have seen, you are so different.” To have an international look is one vital criterion for models abroad. I have seen quite a number of beautiful women all over the world but they are not as successful. And there are a lot of things attributing to your success too, the right agent, the right stylist, the right dresser, the right magazine and the right photographer.
Anuradha SenGupta: Is it also because of your face? You have a kind of face, which when it stares from billboards, cannot be categorised as to which country you could hail from.
Ujjwala Raut: Yes, it is. You know it is also because I guess you have to look international, as you don’t just work in one market. You work in Spain, UK, America and you have to change your look accordingly. You cannot just have one look. When I went abroad, everyone thought that I was Brazilian.
Besides, you also have to be slim and fit in the clothes. They do not alter the clothes according to your body size. It is you who has to fit in the clothes and also have an international look, otherwise there is no chance.
Anuradha SenGupta: A fashion show is basically about women on parade. You become an object as you are looked at being one, yet the Ujjwala I am talking to is somebody who fought against her family and her background. She went and achieved something for independence, the money and for a sense of empowerment. How do you balance these two?
Ujjwala Raut: I do what I want to do and I just don’t do anything and everything. I am very choosy now about what I do, where I am seen, what I wear, how I talk and how I walk. So there are a lot of things behind it. I do not look at myself as an object, which men just want to stare at. Besides, when I am not working, I am very casual and do not want attention.
You have to actually deal with these if you are in a business like modeling.
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Anuradha SenGupta: What do you think of the argument that people have which says that people in the beauty business are actually not liberated. The models may make good money but as women they still have the century-old approach about themselves.
Ujjwala Raut: As you know that my husband is not an Indian. And I actually got more freedom after I got married. My husband allowed me to do what ever I wanted to do.
Anuradha SenGupta: You were liberated even before you got married. You were doing what you wanted to do, isn't it?
Ujjwala Raut: I was doing so but my parents were not very happy with that. There is never a better feeling than knowing that someone is happy with what you are doing in life. But my husband is so amazing; he helps me keep my self focused and calm because sometimes I get very upset and want to scream and shout. It is he who helps me calm down.
Anuradha SenGupta: The two of you are obviously very much in love aren't you?
Ujjwala Raut: Yes, we are.
Anuradha SenGupta: Do you think it’s a problem that men or women, when they look at models or people in the beauty or the glamour business, keep wanting to become like them. Young girls might want to be Ujjwala Raut when know they cannot be her?
Ujjwala Raut: It is not just in India but even when I would go shopping in New York. I would go to stores and the sales girls would say, “You are model, I want to model too!” I would just be honest with them and tell them that modeling is not for everybody. You need to meet certain criteria to become a model. You see I cannot become a doctor or a lawyer.
You actually have to understand where your interest lies in and what you are capable of pursuing as a profession. I cannot be a Cindy Crawford, a Naomi Campbell, or a Christy Turlington. Firstly, I had to realise what I was capable of. What would suit me and what I should do that could make me happy.
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Anuradha SenGupta: Do you want to be in the class of the models whose names you just mentioned?
Ujjwala Raut: I feel I am almost there.
Anuradha SenGupta: Ujjwala Raut, we think you made yourself who you are and it is great that you are acknowledging all the work that goes into being a supermodel. Thank you and all the best.
Ujjwala Raut: Thank you so much.
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