Most of us would find it difficult to imagine Bollywood’s quintessential bad boy performing the role of a veritable Godfather to a talented young beauty. But that is what Salman Khan seems to have achieved when he discovered Sneha Ullal and gently led her down the path to stardom. This dusky doe eyed beauty was a student at MMK College in Mumbai when she received a call from Salman. Incidentally she almost dismissed the call as a prank from her classmates. But Salman managed to convince her that it was indeed he speaking to her over the wire.

And the rest as they say is history. Lucky: No Time For Love happened! In the film Sneha starred against none other than the superstar Salman Khan. The movie was a resounding success and her virginal beauty found permanent space in the hearts of numerous fans. Shooting for the film was not easy, but Salman was helpful throughout. A sequence filmed in Siberia required her to roll down from a snow-clad mountain with Salman. "I didn’t know how to do that so Salman curled his legs around mine," gushes Sneha. "Ah he was so helpful and considerate for my welfare."

She is all praise for Salman whom she calls "gem of a person". Well, every Cinderella does need a prince to lift her on a pedestal. He opens for her the scintillating Bollywood portals and a shy girl who had never thought of acting in films bags the fetching assignment of shooting with him in Russia. Many critics have compared Sneha’s beauty to that of Aishwarya Rai. That undoubtedly is true. Sneha Ullal’s finely chiseled face, when it appears on the screen, has a quaintly mesmerizing effect on the audience.

Sneha doesn’t care if she looks like Aishwarya Rai. Eager to develop a niche for herself in the world of filmdom, she would rather have her fans know her as Sneha and not as another Aishwarya look alike. Having bagged a range of plum projects where she plays the female lead, there is no doubt at all that in the days to come the world is going to be her oyster, if it isn’t so already. It has certainly been a fast rise for this 18-year-old beauty. She was born in Muscat to parents of Indian origin; and now destiny has bade her to rule hearts and minds in India.