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Meet actor who once competed with Aishwarya Rai in Miss India; worked with Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn but later left acting to be a Buddhist nun
Can you guess who's this diva who once competed in the Miss India pageant against Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen but just a few years down left the industry to become a nun?
Showbiz has been quite a blink-and-miss stint for many stars. They came, they conquered and they vanished. Today we are talking about one such actor who first became a sensation by competing against Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen in Miss India in 1994, became a top actress but soon left the industry to follow spiritualism.
Today we are talking about Barkha Madan who is now known as Gyalten Samten. Barkha started her career as a model and went on to compete in Femina Miss India (the same year as Aishwarya and Sushmita.) Just two years later she made her acting debut with the Bollywood film Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (1996) alongside Akshay Kumar and Rekha.
Madan then starred in Driving Miss Palmen (1996) and Tera Mera Pyar (1999) before finding a big foot in showbiz with Ram Gopal Varma's 2003 horror film Bhoot. That movie featured her alongside some popular stars Ajay Devgn, Urmila Matondkar, Nana Patekar, Rekha, Fardeen Khan, and Tanuja. The same year she starred in Sushmita Sen’s Samay: When Time Strikes before moving to television.
Barkha then starred in over 20 TV shows including 1857 Kranti, Ghar Ek Sapnaa, Saat Phere – Saloni Ka Safar, Suraag – The Clue, and Nyaay. Her last showbiz appearance was in the 2012 movie Surkhaab after which Madan left acting.
When Barkha Madan decided to be a Buddhist nun
It was in November 2012 when Barkha decided to become a Buddhist nun. She was highly influenced by the ideologies of Buddhism and became an avid follower of the Dalai Lama and got her ordination from Sera Je Monastery on 4 November under the supervision of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Back when Barkha was in her transition process to be a monk, she was promoting her last film and gave her seemingly last few interviews. Sharing how it feels, Madan told Yahoo back in time, “My life has become very simple now. I have no material possessions. I only have two sets of clothes. I wake up, do my prayers, study, do my meditation, serve in the dharma center I live in and that's it.”
In case you want to find her now, you’ll have to do a nice hunting in the Himalayas and we bet as a monk, she would have turned too different to even recognize.
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