Here’s a beauty queen with a difference. Like her peers, Miss India Worldwide Canada Amin Dhillon also wants to join Bollywood, but only as an item girl.
Amin, 26, who is also a budding author, said she is “very keen on doing item numbers in Bollywood”.
“I love to dress up and I love being the centre of attention. I personally love the item song ‘Kajra re’ and I have actually given live performance on that. I love to perform on stage; so performing on an item song would be awesome,” Amin said in an e-mail interview.
In fact, item songs played a vital role in her success at the beauty pageant. “I actually performed on the song ‘Happening’ from the movie ‘Main Aur Mrs. Khanna’ and it rocked the pageant!”
Amin, whose parents emigrated from Punjab to Canada, was born in Winnipeg, capital of Manitoba. The Asper School of Business graduate participated in the Miss India Canada 2008 beauty pageant and came runner- up. After that she entered Miss India Canada Worldwide contest and won the 2010 title.
The aspiring Bollywood star believes beauty pageants are an easy ladder to Hindi cinema if used wisely.
“Beauty pageants allow you to meet people from all over the world so you often make really good contacts in modelling, acting and in the media that helps you getting in touch with the Indian film industry,” said Amin.
She was in Mumbai last month and says she got offers from the industry; she is right now busy finalising scripts.
“I am looking over a few scripts and hopefully I will be able to announce my first film soon. Right now I’m not allowed to discuss any of these films until things are confirmed,” she said.
Asked about favourite directors in the Hindi film industry, she said: “I like Madhur Bhandarkar and David Dhawan. Madhur makes movies on topics or issues that are different from mainstream cinema and I’m a fan of David because I like his approach towards comedy movies.”
She says her future lies in Bollywood and wants to popularise Indian colours and culture in Hollywood.
“I still model, but I don’t see my future in it. I’m currently focusing on Bollywood. But I am also keen to get into crossover movies as I think we need more English movies that shows Indian culture to the rest of the world.
“I want to bring Bollywood into mainstream Hollywood and increase the popularity of Indian music, songs, and culture here in North America,” she said.
She seems to be the proverbial jack of all trades – apart from modelling and acting, Amin is also into writing and is working on a book on her personal experience of her journey to being a beauty queen.
“I really wanted to write a fictional novel that shows the good and the bad side to pageants – like how hard it is to trust people, how hard is to be judged, how you essentially have to look and act like you’re perfect, but as we all know, no one is perfect.
“My book focuses on a fictional character that accidentally wins a beauty pageant. I am planning to have a series. My first book will be focused on beauty pageants and then we will follow my main character as she goes to the next chapter of her life,” she added.
