Journey of a Model from Chandigarh – Kanak Raj

Whenever someone asks me how it began, I have a polished answer ready. A casting call. A friend who pushed me into a frame. The internet doing what the internet does. All of it is true, and none of it is the whole story. The whole story starts much earlier, in a quiet sector of Chandigarh, with a teenage girl who would stand in front of her wardrobe mirror and pose like the women on the magazine covers her mother kept stacked next to the television.

Growing up in Chandigarh — the city that taught me discipline

Chandigarh is not a model town. It is too organised, too geometric, too well-mannered. There are no studio neighbourhoods, no buzzing casting networks like in Mumbai, no sprawling fashion weeks like in Delhi. What Chandigarh gave me, instead, was the rarest thing for any artist — silence. Long walks around Sukhna Lake. Mornings at the Rose Garden. Sectors numbered like rooms in a house, predictable, calming, designed for daydreams.

I was the kind of girl who watched a film three times in one week and copied the way the actress turned her chin towards the camera. I’d sketch wardrobe ideas in school notebooks. I’d practise expressions on my mother’s mobile phone. None of this was a career plan. It was instinct.

The first time the camera meant something

It was a friend’s birthday shoot. A borrowed DSLR. A garden in Sector 17. I was supposed to be in two frames as a favour to her. I ended up in twenty. The photographer — a college senior — looked at the back of his camera, paused, and said, “You should do this seriously.”

I laughed. My family laughed harder. Female modelling in India still carries the kind of suspicion that small-city families don’t quite shake off. There were the usual conversations: it isn’t a stable career, what will people say, do you know what you’re getting into. I listened. I waited. And then, very quietly, I started building a portfolio anyway.

Training at The ICE Institute

The thing nobody tells you about becoming a model in India is how much craft is involved. You are not just standing pretty. You are reading light, understanding wardrobe, controlling your breath, learning to take direction without ego. I joined The Institute of Creative Excellence (ICE) because I was tired of guessing.

The classes were unglamorous. Posture drills. Camera-angle theory. Cold reads. Voice projection. Most of my batchmates wanted to act; I wanted both. The training never separated the two for me. Whether I was holding a still pose or delivering a monologue, the same rules applied — stay grounded, stay present, let the camera come to you.

The first paid shoot

It was an ethnic-wear catalogue. Ten outfits. Fourteen hours. Lunch was a samosa eaten standing. I went home with sore feet, a tiny envelope of cash, and a belief I had not allowed myself before — that female models from Chandigarh could absolutely build careers without leaving home, as long as they were willing to travel for the work and not for the lifestyle.

Munda Rockstar and what changed

The break, when it came, did not feel like a break. It rarely does. Munda Rockstar (2024) put my face in front of an audience that did not know me before, and that exposure folded directly into the next year of work — campaigns, music videos, short films, brand collaborations. The phone began to ring. The Instagram inbox grew louder.

What I am proudest of, though, is that none of it happened by accident. Every “lucky” call traced back to a self-tape sent at 1am, a shoot done without complaining, a crew member who remembered me kindly. The Indian modelling industry rewards consistency far more than it rewards charisma. Charisma gets you in the room. Consistency gets you back into the room.

What I want every Chandigarh girl to know

If you are reading this from Mohali, Panchkula, Ludhiana, Patiala, or any of the small towns I have shot in over the last two years, listen carefully:

• You do not have to move to Mumbai to start. You do have to stay in conversation with people who are there.
• Build a portfolio before you build a following. A clean portfolio gets you a job. A loud follower count gets you noticed; it does not get you booked.
• Train. Not because you don’t have the looks. Because the looks are the price of admission, not the currency.

Where I am now

I still live in Chandigarh. I travel for shoots — Mumbai, Delhi, Goa, Rajasthan, sometimes abroad. I still come home to the same sector, the same lassi shop, the same bookstore in Sector 22 where the owner does not know what I do for a living and that is exactly why I love it.

This blog is not going to be a brag reel. It is going to be the working diary of a female model based in Chandigarh, Punjab, India — what gets shot, what gets cancelled, what gets learnt. If you are starting out, I hope you’ll find the parts of this journey I wish someone had narrated for me when I was still just a teenager trying to mimic magazine poses in a bedroom mirror.