Mehr Jesia
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Mehr Jesia (born 1969), known since her marriage as Mehr Rampal, was an international supermodel from India during the early 90's.
[edit] Career
Jesia was discovered in 1986 when photographer Faroukh Jussawalla suggested that she take part in the Miss India contest. A week later she took the title, and went on to represent her country in the Miss Universe 1986 pageant.
Having been sponsored by Bombay Dyeing she had to work free for them for a year after the contest. She has said that Mickey Contractor had a lot to do with the way her career took off after that first year. According to her, "He never let me look the same in any two campaigns."[citation needed]
Her first ad was Lakme's winter creme campaign. Her other campaigns include Vimal, Bombay Dyeing, OCM, Nivea, Palmolive, Gleem, Forhans, Philips and Campa Cola.
Super Runway Model Achla Sachdev taught Mehr Jessia how to catwalk properly as Mehr was known to have an awkward walk. The training paid off because Mehr, Madhu Sapre and Milind Soman became the highest paid runway models in India. Achala, Mehr, Namrata and Madhu would often compete to be the designer favourite.
Jose Fonseca (proprietor of Models 1) asked her to represent the agency in London, but she came back because she was homesick.
Jesia has officially retired, and runs a modeling school and agency. She started a modeling agency because: "We models are treated like queens but we have to do everything ourselves - from reading the contracts to following up on payments. If everything is handled by the agency then the model is free to do her own thing. That is what I want to do. Make life easier for the models."[citation needed]
[edit] Personal life
Jesia was born into the Parsi religion.
Jesia is married to fellow model Arjun Rampal. They live in Mumbai with their two daughters, Mahikaa, born on January 17, 2002, and Myra, born June 2005.[citation needed] The couple has two boxer dogs, named Tyson and Demi
