Yukta Mookhey

Yukta Mookhey (born 7 October 1979) is an Indian model and actress. A native of Mulund, Mumbai, she was crowned Miss World in December 1999 at the Olympia theatre in London.

Biography

Her family is from northern India. She lived and studied her first seven years in the Gulf, because her father's work took the family there. The family migrated back to Bombay in June 1986. Mookhey's mother Aruna runs a grooming workshop, Swiss Chalet, at Santa Cruz here while her father Inderlal was the managing director of Ragz Clothing Company. He is now dealing in real estate business and trades in stock market. Yukta was studying zoology at Kelkar college, prior to winning the crown. She has studied classical music since eleven years of age. She has also obtained a computer diploma from Aptech, has studied Hindustani Classical Music, and Fine Arts for 3 and 2 years respectively. Currently, she is preparing to have her first live concert as a classical vocal artist. She used to like prawns in garlic sauce before she turned vegetarian by choice at a young age of ten. Adores Brad Pitt and admires Jane Austen. Yukta is also very spiritual since she was fourteen. In her free time, she indulges in her passion to study cinema and reads books based on facts and religion.

Miss World

Mookhey was chosen for the title from among 94 hopefuls in a pageant which saw Miss Venezuela Martina Thorogood and Miss South Africa Sonia Raciti win the second and third places respectively. During the question round, Mookhey told the judges that Thai food was her favourite and that she would love to go to France. Though having toured the world in the last few years, she now feels there is so much beauty within India - she is a strong patriot and advocates that the government should develop infrastructure and promote tourism. She particularly finds north-east and south of India unexploited natural territories.

Now, she acts in Hindi movies. Her only release so far is a movie called Pyaasa. For a while, she opted to write books but then came back to acting. She still resides in Mumbai on Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mulund (West). One of the challenges she faces as a Bollywood actress is her height of 5'11".

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Other Notes
Memsaab	2006		released july 2006
Kathputli	2006		music video
Love In Japan	released 2005
Poovellam Un Vasam	2001

External links

• http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/9686/yuktamain.html
• http://www.sholay.com/stories/missworld.htm
• http://missindia2.feminamissindia.com/chat_yukta.html