MUMBAI, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Three years ago, a curious American tourist wandered through a waterside slum in Mumbai and came across a smiling little girl.
Maleesha Kharwa is now 15 years old, she is still small and has the same winning smile, and her family still has their cabin on the shore littered with garbage, but they also now rent a one-room apartment, with its own toilet and running water, just a few steps away. distance.
In March, Forest Essentials, an Indian luxury cosmetics brand, chose Maleesha as the face of its Yuvati campaign celebrating young Indian women.
Before this, she had shared a cover of Cosmopolitan India magazine which carried the tagline: “Guts! Guts! Guts!”
Maleesha hopes these successes will be the springboard to a career in modeling or dancing, although she plans to focus on her studies until she finishes school.
“I feel good, because I am different in front of the camera and in real life,” Maleesha told a Reuters photographer at her home, surrounded by poster-covered walls.
[1/5]Maleesha Kharwa, 15, a model and Instagram influencer, takes a selfie next to a bus terminal in Mumbai, India September 11, 2023. REUTERS/Hemanshi Kamani
“Now a lot of people recognize me and click on the photos. I feel very proud of myself at that moment,” she said, before adding that some days she felt like the people were taking too many photos.
Its story has drawn comparisons to the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire which is set in Mumbai.
And her breakthrough reflects gradually changing attitudes in a country where advertising, popular culture and Bollywood films glorify fair skin as an ideal of beauty.
Forest Essentials must have seen something similar to what Robert Hoffman saw, when the American actor and choreographer posted videos on Instagram and YouTube of time spent with the girl and her family in 2020.
Cheeky and polite, Maleesha speaks in a voice that bursts with happiness, belying the struggles she experienced, having lost her mother at a young age, leaving her father to juggle his day job while raising two children.
Knowing the power of the Internet, Hoffman helped her launch a “Go Fund Me” campaign.
Maleesha has since become a social media influencer, using the hashtag “slum princess” in some of her posts. At last count, his Instagram account had 367,000 followers, and that number is growing.
Reporting by Hemanshi Kamani, writing by Tanvi Mehta; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
