Celina Jaitley

Celina Jaitley was born on November 24th in the gorgeous Indian city of Simla. Celina’s mother, Meeta Jaitley, who is of Afghan descent, was also an ex-beauty queen and a child psychologist by profession. Her father, Colonel VK Jaitley, is half-Kashmiri, half-Punjabi and his ancestor’s roots can be traced back to Peshawar. Since her father was an Indian Army Officer, Celina spent most of her childhood living a nomadic lifestyle, changing schools up to thirteen times, while travelling across the most exquisite parts of the country. From Kashmir to Kumaon and Mizarom to Gopalpur, there’s hardly any area in India that she hasn’t visited. She had what she calls an ideal childhood with loving parents and a brother with whom she would create lots of mischief.

While Celina’s father was posted in Gopalpur, she had enrolled herself in a B.Sc. in the local college, but fate had other plans for Celina. She met actress-director Aparna Sen at an army party there and she urged her to come to Calcutta to participate in the Sandana Tilottama beauty pageant. At the time, Celina was looking for a way to step out of the protected army lifestyle she had been living and into the real world, and this seemed like a great option. Celina arrived in Calcutta with absolutely no knowledge of the glamour world and felt like Alice in Wonderland, but the Sandana team took her under their belt and she went on to win the beauty contest causing the modeling offers to flood in.

After a serious discussion with her family and much thought, Celina decided to shift to Calcutta to pursue a modeling career with a promise to complete her education as that was the only clause the supporting parents included in the agreement. While in Calcutta, Celina refused any help from her parents as she wanted to do everything on her own to experience complete independence. She admits it was extremely tough at times but the satisfaction it gave her was priceless. She had enrolled for a commerce degree at the Indira Gandhi Open University and would pursue her modeling career by night. To be able to sustain herself, she even managed to squeeze in a second job during the day. Her first job saw her teach computers to senior officials in a multinational company and later on she shifted to the sales department of a telecom company.

The next four years saw Celina rise to be one of the most sought after models in Calcutta, but at the peak of her career she decided to give it all up for a career in the armed forces. Although she had enjoyed her modeling stint, the hectic lifestyle was getting to her and since Celina’s family has served in the Indian army for generations and generations, she wanted to continue the tradition and decided to appear for the Services Selection Board. Once again, destiny stepped in and changed the course of Celina’s life.

As she began preparing for the Services examination, Celina’s best friend had sent her photographs for the Miss India selection round. One day while attending college her friend came running up to her and gave her the shock of a lifetime. She told her that she had been shortlisted for the zonal round of Miss India and she would have to come right away to meet the judges. Wearing an old white T-shirt that was torn with some old jeans she was reluctantly dragged to meet the judges who looked beyond all that and selected her as a finalist from the eastern zone. Once selected, Celina was still uncertain about going ahead with the contest as she had the defense examinations to prepare for. A talk with her parents soon convinced her to take part and with no great expectations Celina arrived in Mumbai just to have fun with a new experience.

But not only did Celina go on to become the next Miss India Universe in 2001, she also won almost all the major sub-contests in the pageant, such as Best Skin, Best Clothes, and MTV’s Most Wanted. The win enabled her to participate in the Miss Universe title, a title that had been won by India for three consecutive years. There was immense pressure on her persona with the press flooding her with questions about rigging. She was weighed down by all this skepticism and it did cast its impact on the final outcome. Nevertheless, Celina was adjudged fourth runner up from amongst 83 contestants, which was no easy feat at all. And from that moment there was no looking back for Celina.

The film offers came pouring in as early as 15 days after her winning the Miss India title but Celina thought long and hard before finally giving up her dream of being a part of the army. She gave examinations towards her last semester of college qualifying as a commerce graduate with honors in accountancy, fulfilling her parent’s desire for her to complete her education.

It was then that she plunged into the world of Bollywood choosing Feroz Khan’s Janasheen to be her launch pad. Ultimately, Khel went on to be her first release with Janasheen following soon thereafter. Although both films didn’t manage to garner the response expected, Celina was undeterred and only worked harder to prove her talent. She has since then garnered much critical acclaim for her work in films such as Silsiilay and Red and of course the comedies for which she is most well known for, No Entry and Apna Sapna Money Money. She is currently in the stage of crossing over to Hollywood with the help of a great publicist, Asal Masomi, and great managers in the form of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment all the while signing great Bollywood films as well, receiving the best of both worlds in the true sense of the phrase. We at Celina-Jaitley.info want to wish this Miss a great deal of success and happiness as she ventures forth into the most exciting phase of her career. We love you Celina!