Taapsee Pannu’s journey from Beauty pageant to Bollywood

Taapsee Pannu, the gorgeous Indian model, beauty queen and actress had a long and rough road on the way to her current success and fame.

The Punjabi kudi completed her graduation in Computer Science Engineering from the Guru Tegh Bahadur Institute of Technology in New Delhi. During her college days with her craze to try modeling and for extra pocket money, she made an entry into the glamour industry.

She later participated at Femina Miss India 2008 pageant at the age of 20 and even though she did not win the national pageant she bagged two important sub titles ‘Femina Miss Fresh Face’ and ‘Femina Miss Beautiful Skin’ at the 2008 contest.

Speaking about the change of career choices Taapsee told a source, “I always like to try different things in my life that is why I am always keen on doing everything that is not expected out of me. I love being unpredictable and what more unpredictable than going for the biggest pageant of the country while studying for one of the toughest degrees.”

For aspirants of pageantry she even shared her experience with Femina Miss India and said, “It was an interesting experience, full of ups and downs. There were days when I was really happy and there were days when I felt like coming back, leaving everything. We had 14 experts to train us and no doubt it was a great learning experience, the most important was that we had to live and adjust with 28 strangers, girls who not only came from different parts of the country and the world but also from different kinds of backgrounds. So in all it’s an experience to treasure.”

Post her stint at the national pageant she went back to modeling which she initially wanted to pursue full time, but later lost interest in modeling as she did not receive the recognition she wished for and finally decided to become an actor.

Taapsee who had no support or acquaintances in the film industry, auditioned and was selected for Channel V's talent show Get Gorgeous, which eventually led her to acting and from there she had no turning back. She still struggled with countless rejection from filmmakers and then went ahead and made her acting debut with the Telugu film Jhummandi Naadam in 2010 and later in 2013 made her Bollywood debut with the successful comedy Chashme Baddoor which was a remake of the 1981 film with the same title, alongside Siddharth, Rishi Kapoor, Divyendu Sharma and Ali Zafar.