Name : Kamal Sidhu Titles won : Winner Miss India Canada, 1990

Now a channel AXN VJ, anyone who knows Kamal Sidhu would know that she can be described as being synonymous with cream - she always rises to the top! From as early as her school days in Quebec, Canada, Kamal has always been striving to do her best, from aiming to be an Olympic athlete,to getting her university degree in pre-med,to becoming the undisputed beauty of the small screen.

Aside from a face that could launch a million ships, Kamal also has an unequaled work ethic. As a talented athlete she was training to compete at Olympics Games in Atlanta, representing Canada in the hepthathlon. An unfortunate injury ended those dreams abruptly. Anyone else would have been lulled into inertia, but not Kamal. Instead she turned her focus on her studies, majoring in human Kinetics or Kinesiology.

After she completed her fourth year, her cousin suggested that they enter the Miss India Canada pageant together. As an athlete and medical student, Kamal laughed at the idea, but played along and won the contest. Modeling offers came pouring in. Deciding it was time to return to her ancestral root in India, she arrived on the of Hindustan in 1991 where MTV scouts spotted her immediately.

Traveling has always been a passion and a way of life for the doe-eyed beauty. Kamal was born in Philippines ("but I'II have you know I'm a Punjabi girl!"), where she stayed till the age of six. Armed with Tagalog, English and Punjabi as languages she moved to Canada where she added French to her linguistic skills. Her last linguistic endeavor was adding Hindi to that list for her film ' Aar ya Paar" opposite Jackie Shroff.

She is the Jat-Sikh girl of Indian descent. Though born in Canada, Kamal is a true Indian at heart. Voted as Miss India Canada in the year 1990, Kamal brushed up her creativity and was picked up by MTV (original) and still continues to play VJ with the Canadian foremost music channel, Much Music. She also became one of first breed of VJs who stormed India with their 'firang' looks - and accents too - ever since ChannelV found a foothold in India. A few years back, this woman with permanent perm was here in India on the modeling arena and she tried her hand at films too, but couldn't find anything substantial after her disastrous debut in Ketan Mehta's Aar Ya Paar.

She's been told she's too polite, she finds the politics of the film industry a little intimidating and she doesn't speak Hindi too well. But she manages, and her debut film, Aar Ya Paar, has been one big learning experience.

A Canadian beauty queen, Kamal Sidhu brought herself into the Indian limelight in the early nineties when she started out as a VJ on MTV, then a part of Star TV. One of the first few 'Indian' VJs, Sidhu and her Canadian accent were hugely popular with the teen population, many imitating her style of dress, hair and talking.

However, as with most models and television professionals, the silver screen proved very attractive and she picked up the role of a phoren-returned rich girl in Ketan Mehta's Aar Ya Paar, which she found tremendously interesting, though difficult because of the language. Sidhu comes from a Punjabi family and therefore speaks, apart from English, Punjabi. No Hindi. And so, to be able to tackle the language problem, she had two scripts made. One in English, so she could get the story and one in Hindi, but written in English, so she could memorise the dialogues.

Sidhu, though, is quite the Englishwoman in New York when it comes to being in the film industry. "I really don't know much about the politics or the who's who and what's what of the industry," she says. "All I look at is my individual role. The last thing I want to do is get involved in any industry goings-on. It doesn't improve my life or my work in any way. So I like to basically just go in, do my work and that's it."

A little-known facet of Sidhu's is her intense concern about the environment. Not just celebrity we-should-take-care-of-our-environment concern, but the genuine kind wherein she's actually met with mayors of cities and discussed plans on how to keep cities clean and pollution-free.