Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was a popular face even before she entered the pageant. In 1993, when she was a model, Aishwarya featured in a soft drink commercial and became a star instantly. It saw her alongside Aamir Khan and Mahima Chaudhry. Adman Prahlad Kakkar who was the creative mind behind the commercial was responsible for casting Aishwarya and his tagline, ‘Yeh hai right choice baby’ turned out to be huge. In a recent interview, Kakkar has revisited that time and recalled how all the three actors became hugely popular after this ad. He said during a chat with Bombay Times that initially Shah Rukh Khan was meant to be cast for the commercial but he chose Aamir Khan instead as he thought he would be a better choice for it, post ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’. He shared, ““I love Shah Rukh, but he wasn’t the character. He would have had to play the character. Aamir already had the legacy; people would naturally assume this was an extension of his Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak persona.”
Kakkar recalled how inexperienced she was, as she said, “I had to work on her because she was completely raw. She hadn’t done anything before.” When asked whether it was tough directing a newcomer, he said, “It wasn’t. As a director, you can’t get frustrated. It is your job.”He then revealed what made her presence so striking, “Because she was raw, she had this innocence. She walks into the frame, stands provocatively, and says, ‘Hi, I am Sanju… Got another Pepsi?’ Her body language actually challenged Aamir to say no—and that wasn’t articulated, it just happened.”Finding the perfect face wasn’t easy either. “We took four months to find Aishwarya. Once I found her, I had to work on her. It took me about 18 takes.”Since it was her first time in front of a camera, she naturally felt nervous. Kakkar remembered her moment of hesitation: “In the middle of the shoot she turned to me and said, ‘I can’t do it. This isn’t happening.’ I took her aside and tried to help her think in a certain way. She said, ‘I can’t because I haven’t experienced it. I have never had a boyfriend. How do I go before a man and behave like a woman?’”But even through the uncertainty, Kakkar was sure he had found the right person. “She had all the attributes of ‘arrestingness’ that I needed for those four seconds. I wanted people to look at her and say ‘Wow!’—but it also had to go beyond that. It had to provoke Aamir’s character to say, ‘I know the shop is closed, but I need to do something.’”The commercial ended up launching Aishwarya into the national consciousness, and she has remained one of India’s most admired stars ever since.
