Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's Journey through the Years: From Model to Actress [SLIDESHOW]

Veteran Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan is preparing to construct and dedicate a college to his daughter-in-law, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. According to a report on India Today, the construction work will start soon. It is believed, however, there will initially only be a school, with classes up to Standard 12.

Meanwhile, Aishwarya Rai's recently released photograph, showing her posing with American talk show queen Oprah Winfrey was one of the first to be released post her pregnancy. The big question is - has the former Miss World and the woman once declared as the "most beautiful in the world" changed. Well... she definitely seems to have put on weight, which is of course normal and to be expected. The photo does show her wearing a rather loose salwar... far looser than she wore pre-pregnancy.

Aishwarya Rai rose to fame after winning the Miss World Beauty Pageant in 1994, after which she secured a few modelling and commercial opportunities. However, her entertainment career really only took off after she joined Bollywood. Since then, the actress has starred in both Hindi and English films.

Incidentally, she was the first Indian actress to be a jury member at Cannes, where she is a regular visitor, thanks to her association with cosmetics brand L'Oreal.

She was listed, in 2004, as one of the most influential people in the world, by TIME magazine and even had her likeness enshrined at London's Madame Tussauds museum in the same year. In 2005, she was voted as one of the "50 Sexiest Actress for the last 20 Years" by VH1 and the next year UK magazine Eastern Eye called her "Asia's Sexiest Woman".

In 2007 she married actor Abhishek Bachchan. The couple are now proud parents to their first child, daughter Aaradhya Bachchan and they celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary on 20 April.

Check out these photographs of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's journey from a model to an actress...