Wanted to become a doctor but life had other plans: Manushi Chhillar on going back to medical college

Mumbai: Life took a massive turn for Manushi Chhillar who dreamt of becoming a doctor one day, was crowned the Miss World in the year 2017.

Recently opening up about why she didn’t pursue her medical education, the Former Miss World spoke to the Hindustan Times commenting on how life had other plans for her and going back to the medical college was not just in the cards.

Manushi Chillar brought laurels to the nation after she bagged the Miss World title in 2017. However, as she saw success in the world of glamour, her road to becoming a doctor got marked by continued controversies.

Read Also: Banned or not: Controversy Surrounds Miss World Manushi Chillar's MBBS examinations

Manushi had taken admission as an MBBS student at Haryana-based Bhagat Phool Singh Women's Medical College in the academic year 2015-16. After winning the title of Miss India in June 2017, she applied for leave. She did not report to the medical college for months. Since she has been residing in Mumbai and her family shifted there post the Miss World title, she wanted to pursue the remaining part of her undergraduate course in Mumbai.

For this, she had filed an application seeking migration from Bhagat Phool Singh Women's Medical College to a Mumbai-based medical college and was given a No Objection Certificate (NOC) by the Pandit BD Sharma University Rohtak. However, the said NOC became a matter of controversy after it was alleged it was issued by putting the rules on hold for her and without taking permission from the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI), now National Medical Commission (NMC).

Read Also: Former Miss World Manushi Chillar gets NOC to pursue MBBS at Mumbai Medical College, sparks Controversy

The matter of her migration was further brought up during the apex regulator meeting on 13th June 2019 where the MCI Board of Governors had denied her permission for the said migration.

Read Also: MCI refuses nod to former Miss World Manushi Chillar for MBBS Migration

Eventually, Manushi had to leave her MBBS studies midway. However, her career outside academics progressed in the form of her big Bollywood debut next to Akshay Kumar last year in the movie- Samrat Prithviraj, top brand deals, her Cannes debut this year and an upcoming movie Tehran next to John Abraham.

In a recent interview with the Hindustan Times, Manushi Chillar opened up all about why she did not choose to follow her original ambition of pursuing medical studies and how her life changed completely after winning the title.

“After winning Miss World, I worked really hard to clear my medical entrance in college. I always wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to use the experience I got as Miss World and combine that with my medical degree. But life had other plans… I never thought I want to pursue acting as a profession,” she said.

Pointing out the enormity of this drastic change, Maunshi mentioned how going back to the medical college wouldn't have been possible for her as the certain level of anonymity she enjoyed as a student wouldn't exist.

“So I didn’t even have first-hand experience seeing the journey, how life changes. When I had that experience myself, I realised going back to college was not possible because you lose anonymity. You are popular, life changes. There’s a certain amount of privacy and anonymity you want as a student. As great a change this is in my life, it comes with a lot of love from people for something that happened to me,” she told Hindustan Times.

Chhillar added the pageant was “something extraordinary”, and films soon came knocking at her door. Commenting on how she embraces this change, “People wanted to launch me. Many things happened. The only thing certain in life is the uncertainty. In the end, everything worked out in my favour, I love it,” she added while interacting with HT.