Before she became the first Indian woman to win the Miss Universe title in 1994, Sushmita Sen had to face a personal battle at home. Her decision to participate in Miss India created a painful rift with her father.
“My father wanted me to be an IAS officer, so I was studying accordingly,” she revealed in a video interview. “When the bomb was dropped on my dad, that she was going to enter Miss India, my father didn’t speak to me for a bit.”
Film actress Sushmita Sen with father Subir Sen (Express archive photo by Prakash Yeram.)“I remember having this very emotional moment with my father where I promised him—I said, Baba, I have to wear a swimsuit. It is a part of the show. I cannot not wear it. But I promise you, I will add respect to it. It won’t be crass. I will do it as dignified.”
She made a heartfelt case, grounded in her sense of fairness. “Baba, I can’t compete in a competition where everyone does one thing and I don’t do it. Then there’s no way to compete.” It was an honest appeal, but not one that immediately won over her father. “He was not very happy with that,” she recalled.
“When I won Miss India and I told my father that I will represent my country, Baba…”, her voice softens in recollection, “that, for my father being a defence personnel… he had balled his lungs out. I remember looking at my dad’s face and thinking—suddenly I had given him the biggest moment of his life.”
Counselling psychologist Srishti Vatsa underlines why such stories matter. “The creation of confidence in children depends on their parents’ ability to build it rather than destroy it,” she says. “A child observes themselves through your self-concept which makes this matter extremely vital.”
In families where love is conditional on obedience, confidence can be deeply compromised. “Many parents withhold affection thinking they’re preparing their children for the real world. But the child suffers from an absence of necessary love and ends up lacking confidence,” she explains. “Children grow best when they know their parents stand by their side while leading them toward independence.”
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Years later, Sushmita would become a global icon, and it all started with a difficult conversation at home.
