Anu Aggarwal: A Life of Miracles, Flow, and Service
Even though she is an extremely straightforward woman, with poker-straight hair and a yogic, upright gait, the life of self-made Anu Aggarwal has never followed a straight line. Her journey is not a story of tidy endings and new beginnings but of flow — a string of miracles unfolding from childhood to the present. Long before the world knew her as the dusky beauty who became India’s first supermodel and the cult icon of Aashiqui, she was excelling in everything she touched.
Early Brilliance
Anu’s childhood was a study in contrasts: discipline and freedom, structure and spontaneity. Born into modest circumstances, she grew up in Delhi in an atmosphere where academic performance was valued but curiosity was never stifled. From her earliest years she showed a hunger for knowledge. In school she was never outside the top three, a natural scholar who later topped Delhi University in sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Teachers recall her as the student who not only mastered textbooks but also asked questions that went beyond them, connecting classroom theory to lived reality.
Her intellect was matched by an extraordinary range of talents. By sixteen she was already performing lead roles in theater at the Kamani Auditorium, including a fourteen-page Greek monologue that asked a single profound question: What is life? The maturity of her performance stunned audiences. For Anu, art was never simply about applause — it was inquiry, a way of understanding life’s mysteries.
Sports, too, called her. She was a serious athlete and by the tenth grade had been recommended for the state basketball team. An accident derailed that trajectory, closing the door on sports but opening others. Instead of dwelling on what was lost, she poured herself into theater, music, and dance. She trained in Hindustani classical singing and nearly completed a Visharad in Kathak dance. Her evenings were often split between rehearsals, music practice, and study. Even as a free-spirited teenager who enjoyed parties, camping trips, and dancing with friends, she balanced joy with diligence.
At Delhi University, she emerged as both a top student and a campus star, voted one of the university’s “sexiest sirens.” Yet she never confused beauty with worth. Compliments were met with a smile and her gentle reminder: “Beauty is within. Can you see that?”
Her clarity of purpose was unusual for her age. Invitations to pageants like Miss India and Miss Universe — considered dream opportunities by many — were dismissed as “a waste of time.” She was more drawn to human suffering than spotlights. During her Master’s in Social Work she became a United Nations ambassador on an early UNHCR project, single-handedly creating programs to integrate refugees into Indian society, provide psycho-social support, and promote self-reliance. Service to people came before glamour — a principle that would anchor her through all that followed.
The Supermodel Who Changed Bollywood Style
And yet glamour had its own designs. Anu’s striking looks, which defied narrow definitions of beauty, made her one of India’s first international supermodels. She worked in Paris and other global fashion centers, modeling couture while simultaneously redefining beauty standards back home. In an industry dominated by Eurocentric ideals, she stood out — dusky, statuesque, confident, unapologetically herself.
Her entry into cinema brought the same sensibility. For Aashiqui, her debut, she persuaded an Oscar-winning costume designer (renowned for Gandhi) to create a wardrobe that was international, timeless, and dignified. It was a daring move when mainstream Bollywood style was still heavily formulaic and parochial. The gamble paid off. Aashiqui became a phenomenon, and Anu became an icon. The film remains a cult classic more than three decades later, inspiring sequels and defining an era of romance.
Behind the scenes she often challenged convention. When producers suggested revealing costumes or melodramatic gestures, she argued for subtlety and elegance. She insisted that dignity and sensuality were not opposites but complements. Looking back, many credit her with shifting Bollywood fashion toward modernity.
The fame was intense. At Wembley Stadium in London she performed a song from Aashiqui to tens of thousands of fans who screamed “Anu, Anu!” in unison, forcing four muscular bodyguards to surround her for protection. The experience was exhilarating, but her background in social work kept her grounded. She tasted what she calls “extreme” fame but never let it consume her.
Crossing Borders
By the mid-1990s Anu was pushing beyond Bollywood. She starred in The Cloud Door, a German production by acclaimed filmmaker Regina Ziegler. The film premiered at Cannes in 1995, became a festival favorite, and went on to screen at more than forty international festivals. For an Indian actor in that era, this was rare international acclaim.
She also broke new ground on television. Chosen to host MTV India’s flagship show, she became one of the country’s first VJs. On Oye MTV she spoke in Hinglish — a blend of Hindi and English — that resonated instantly with youth. For many expatriate Indians in the mid-1990s, it was the first time they felt cultural pride reflected back to them on global television.
Meanwhile, her financial independence grew. By her twenties she owned a flat in Mumbai, one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, and earned more than most of her male peers. Yet she used her visibility to push important conversations. When asked why she endorsed Kamasutra condoms, she answered: “Because India needs safe sex education. The population is exploding and people need to know.” She was willing to take risks for causes she believed in.
The Turning Point: From Cinema to Consciousness
After Cannes, Anu was offered representation by International Creative Management (ICM), one of Hollywood’s top agencies. She could have stepped into global cinema. Instead, she made a radical choice.
In 1997 she joined the International Yoga University in India to study the history of yoga. The course was meant to last four months, but she stayed for over a year and a half. There she immersed herself in Vedic knowledge, Karma Yoga, and the discipline of monastic life. Karma Yoga, the path of selfless service, became the thread that tied together her academic training, her humanitarian instincts, and her inner search.
Karma Yoga was not just theory. Each day she swept floors, served food, cleaned dormitories, and worked in the fields alongside other students. Through such tasks she learned humility and the principle that no work is beneath anyone. “The simplest service, done with the right attitude, is meditation in action,” she reflects.
“I had already left behind the desire to earn fame and money,” she says. “What I wanted was to give yoga to the world.”
This was a profound transformation long before her accident. When she returned to the city, it was not to reclaim stardom but to share yoga’s gift.
The Awakening of the Self
Then, in 1999, came the devastating car crash. She was in a coma for 29 days, her body broken, her memory blurred. Doctors doubted she would ever return to normal life.
But for Anu, the accident was not the reason she left films — she had already chosen yoga. Instead, the accident became an awakening. “When the entire body broke down, I met my Atma, my inner self,” she recalls. “What yogis seek through tapasya for decades, I was given through this accident.”
Some advanced yogis even told her this was her last birth. She calls it both disempowering and liberating, a stripping away of all she had clung to, and a rebirth into compassion, resilience, and laughter.
Monkhood and Self-Healing
Her years in the ashram became her sanctuary. She shaved her head, lived simply, studied Nada Yoga — the yoga of sound — and immersed herself in silence and meditation. She learned to observe herself without judgment, to let go of ego, and to heal.
Her humor lightened even her toughest lessons. “The patient became her own mentor and healed herself,” she would joke. But beneath the humor was profound truth. Through discipline, she rebuilt her health and discovered inner depth. Out of this transformation, a new method began to emerge.
The Birth of AnuFunYoga
From her monkhood and return to society came AnuFunYoga — a system blending yoga, neuroscience, and joy. It was first practiced in the slums of Mumbai, where Anu worked with children who were withdrawn, anxious, and depressed.
“When I met them, they weren’t smiling, laughing, or playing,” she recalls. “So I began with fun — games, laughter, movement. Slowly, their inner happiness surfaced.”
From that seed grew a structured system: AnuFunYoga. Its practices are designed to help children, women, and trauma survivors rediscover confidence, resilience, and joy.
In 2015, Anu studied the Science of Happiness at UC Berkeley. There she encountered neuroscience research that showed the brain’s plasticity. “At any age,” she explains, “we can reshape our brain toward compassion, empathy, and service.”This insight became a cornerstone of AnuFunYoga, which unites ancient wisdom with modern science.
Impact Stories
The results have been striking. One slum child who had stopped speaking after abuse began laughing again through AnuFunYoga games, later rejoining school. A corporate team, drained by long hours and conflict, found renewed energy and harmony after a single workshop. A woman who had survived trauma described the practice as “the first time I felt lightness in my chest in years.”
These stories, multiplied across thousands of participants, testify to its reach. As one participant summed it up: “I walked in heavy, I left light.”
Daily Life in Harmony
Her discipline continues today through the practice of AnuFunYoga, the integrated lifestyle she developed. Each morning begins at 5 a.m. with a cold-water bath and Nada Yoga — the yoga of sound — attuning herself with inner and outer vibrations. From there she moves into deep meditation, then flows into yoga asanas to align body and mind.
Only after this practice does she enter her kitchen, where cooking becomes part of her yoga. She prepares simple sattvic meals — fruits, nuts, and light vegetarian dishes that nourish energy and clarity. Cleaning her home and maintaining simplicity are extensions of the same practice — mindfulness expressed in daily living.
Festivals add another layer. She prepares Indian meals with intention, explaining how traditions like Navratri fasting reveal deeper sciences of renewal and regeneration. “Fasting is not deprivation,” she says. “It’s renewal. It gives the body time to heal, and the mind space to grow.”
Her practice of AnuFunYoga is inseparable from Karma Yoga — the path of selfless service — which she began in the ashram and continues today through her work with children, women, and communities. For her, service is not separate from practice. It is the practice.
The Anu Aggarwal Foundation
In 2017 she established the Anu Aggarwal Foundation (AAF), dedicated to mental health, women’s empowerment, and sustainable futures. AAF’s mission is to restructure minds positively, raise inner fitness, and cultivate awareness of self and community. Its programs span from slum children to stressed corporate executives, from women facing trauma to youth navigating identity crises.
AAF also runs “green drives,” linking environmental well-being with personal wellness. “The micro and the macro reflect each other,” Anu notes. “Who you are shapes the environment, and the environment shapes who you are.”
One signature program, Smile Again, uses play-based yoga to help slum children recover from anxiety and aggression. Another, Corporate Calm, brings stress management tools to high-pressure workplaces. Workshops for women emphasize resilience, self-worth, and healing from trauma.
Future Vision
Looking ahead, AAF plans to expand AnuFunYoga globally through partnerships with schools, universities, health organizations, and digital platforms. Pilot programs in schools are being designed to bring resilience and play into curricula. Collaborations with global wellness institutes aim to validate the method scientifically and scale its reach. While new projects on Health are in the pipeline.
One of AAF’s most urgent commitments is the green drive, rooted in the understanding that the human body itself is made of the five elements — earth, water, air, fire, and ether. To heal people, the environment must also be healed. From tree-plantation campaigns to global awareness drives, AAF emphasizes that protecting nature is not charity but survival. “When we nurture the environment, we nurture ourselves,” Anu explains. This elemental philosophy guides the foundation’s environmental projects as strongly as its work in mental health and empowerment.
AAF is also working on a dedicated project addressing obesity, one of today’s most underestimated yet deadly health issues. Often brushed aside as a cosmetic concern, obesity is in fact a driver of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and emotional distress — making it a global killer that cannot be ignored. Through yoga, mindful nutrition, and lifestyle rebalancing, AAF is building a program to help communities confront this challenge with dignity and support. As with all AAF initiatives, this is community work: those who feel called are invited to join, contribute, and grow the movement together.
Another central focus of AAF is mental health — delivered not only to marginalized communities but also to corporates and professionals under pressure. Through AnuFunYoga, the foundation is creating scalable models of stress release and posture correction for people who spend 12 to 16 hours at desks, often leading to chronic pain, anxiety, and burnout. Recent discussions with a leading bank have opened the door to corporate programs, and an upcoming app will make these practices accessible to wider audiences. As highlighted in a recent LinkedIn article, the goal is to reach young people and working professionals before stress, bad posture, and stillness take a toll on their health and lives.
All of these initiatives — from environmental drives to obesity prevention to corporate stress release — ultimately connect back to one core mission: mental health. When Anu first launched AnuFunYoga in 2014, she described it simply as “mental health.” At the time, awareness was so low that many shrugged it off. Yet she had already envisioned what is only now becoming mainstream: that true well-being begins with happiness, self-confidence, and self-esteem. The COVID era forced the world to take mental health seriously, but AnuFunYoga was already there, pioneering tools to help children, youth, women, and professionals across all sectors strengthen their inner quotient of happiness — the foundation for resilience at any age and in any community.
Her larger vision is simple: “To awaken happiness as a survival skill, not a luxury.”
Return to Acting and Writing
Despite monkhood and activism, Anu has not abandoned art. She is preparing a return to acting, aiming to reconnect with millions and use cinema as a bridge for messages of resilience and joy.
She is also completing her new book, From Death to Breath, which expands on her self-healing journey and its lessons for communities. It follows her memoir Anusual (2015), which chronicled her rise, accident, and rebirth, and was released internationally in New York and sold worldwide through Amazon and sold at the popular bookstore Barnes & Noble in NYC. That was a proud moment for Anu who has been an avid reader since childhood.
From her forthcoming book:
“…When I walked away, I was a cover girl. Each interview I did would show up on a cover with my picture. I was at the rolling top when I chose anonymity. But this anonymity didn’t come after my accident, as many assume. It was a conscious choice I made much earlier, looking for happiness which somehow massive stardom had stolen from me. When I walked into a yoga ashram by the Ganges to study, transform into a yogini, and later teach yoga. I topped my batch in the international yoga university that welcomed students from over 500 countries, and I stayed on to serve there, perform Karmayoga… Looking back, I realize my choice wasn’t about withdrawal — it was about self-development. Today, the world is buzzing with talk of wellness and personal growth, but three decades ago I had already chosen that path, quietly, by the Ganges…”
Global Speaker
Doctor Anu has delivered six TEDx talks and has also been featured by TED globally. She speaks worldwide at conferences, wellness summits, and universities, covering topics from diet and yoga to trauma, happiness, and transformation. Her themes combine science and spirituality in a voice that is authentic and accessible.
“Happiness is not frivolous,” she tells audiences. “It is power. It heals, it transforms, it sustains.”
The Essence of Anu
Through it all, what defines Anu Aggarwal is not a list of achievements but her essence. She is undefinable: a supermodel with an international look, a monk with a shaved head, a Bollywood superstar, a yogi, a humanitarian, a writer, a teacher. Her presence is magnetic, her laughter contagious, her message simple: joy is the most powerful medicine.
From slum children rediscovering their smiles, to women empowerment, to corporate teams learning to de-stress, to cleaning and reenergizing surroundings in the environment, from refugees supported in her early career to millions inspired by her comeback, Anu’s life remains what it began as — a story of miracles, undefined beauty, style and glamour, flowing into service to spread happiness, and a lot of joy.
Sidebar: Honors & Global Recognition
- Forbes Top 100 Leaders
- ET Women Award
- G100 Global Leader
- Iconic Actor Award
- London recognition for AAF
- Smiley Global Ambassador (Harvey Ball Foundation, USA)
- Government of India Yoga Award
- Atmanirbhar Bharat Award
- Certified Naturopathic Doctor (ICNM, USA)
- Upcoming Doctor’s Award (World Humanitarian Protection Commission, WHRPC)