I haven’t stopped thinking about Madhu Sapre for days. It started with an Instagram DM, then moved to WhatsApp messages, and finally to a formal email exchange to align on our notes. Soon after, we scheduled our first proper WhatsApp call — a dance that required us to navigate time zones, as she was travelling back to Italy from Mumbai. Also read | Can you guess all 3 OG Indian beauty queens at Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla’s show?
An unexpected connection across time zones
When we finally connected, our very first call stretched on for an hour and a half — an effortless conversation where time simply slipped away. And ever since, every time we speak, it turns into a warm dialogue that we are forced to cut short only because life demands it. Some of what we spoke about will stay where it belongs — just between Madhu and me.
If you talk to enough famous people, you learn to spot the defensive perimeter — the careful curation, the polite distance. Madhu Sapre has none of it. Talking to her is an exercise in total vulnerability. She has this almost disarming ability to make you feel like you are the only person in the room (or on the line in my case). I found myself connecting with her on a deeply human level: over our shared Cancerian habit of feeling everything deeply, and quickly, and the sacred ritual of looking forward to tomorrow morning’s coffee before our heads even hit the bed at night.
She told Hindustan Times from her home in Italy, “I sleep very early and wake up very early. Then I will say good morning to my dog [Spikey], give him a hundred kisses and let him out in the garden, then I will prepare my coffee, which I look forward to from the night before.” Same, Madhu. Same.
And that’s the thing. She isn’t just the OG Indian supermodel, the second runner-up at Miss Universe 1992, or the face that defined the iconic Garden Vareli campaigns. She is one of those people who make everyone around them feel seen. When I mentioned this, she brushed it off. For Madhu, it’s simply about empathy: everyone is carrying a heavy load, and she refuses to add to anyone else’s weight. So if you’re expecting a story about a diva demanding a comeback, you won’t find it here. This is a story about discipline, about choosing quiet over chaos.
Her discipline will put your routine to shame
If there is one thing you need to know about Madhu Sapre, it isn’t her timeless beauty. It is her unbreakable, relentless discipline. Long before the runways and fame, there was a teenage girl on Juhu Beach at 3:30 in the morning. “I used to wake up at 3:30 am or 4 am. My dad and I used to go to Juhu. I used to come home, attend a few hours in college, eat, sleep, and go to town to practice again,” she recalled.
She had just finished 10th standard in Marathi medium and was a national-level athlete. When she switched to an English-medium college for the 11th standard, she couldn’t understand a single lecture. “It all went by overhead,” she laughed.
Most people would have panicked. She bought a dictionary. She started teaching herself English word by word, with Emily Bronte and Charles Dickens as her tutors: “I told my daddy, ‘I am going to learn English.'” That never-say-die attitude is still her calling card.
When I asked her how she wants Gen Z, or people who have just discovered her on Instagram, to see her, she didn’t say ‘supermodel’: “That I am a simple, determined, disciplined, very hard-working woman with a never-say-die attitude. The success I achieved hasn’t come easily. There is a lot of hard work and sacrifice behind. At the same time, I was very lucky to be at the right time, at the right place.”
And then, almost as an afterthought: “I am an animal, nature lover, I meditate, I am a good cook, I love being a mom. And thank you to my dad, without whose support and guidance, I would never have found my way and success. I miss him every day; he passed away some years ago.”
She navigated Paris with a paper map and sheer willpower
That ironclad structure — instilled by her father, who she calls ‘way ahead of his times’ — became her armour in the 90s. After Miss India and Miss Universe, she was in Europe between 1993 and 1996 to model. No Google Maps, no manager booking Ubers. “I had to sit with the Paris and the London map and a diary to understand from which point I had to go to what point, and I had to finish them in the day, the ‘go-sees’,” she said, adding, “So I had to organise that myself — bus, train, walking, whatever it was.”
The ‘Americans had taught her to be super organised’ during pageant prep. Europe taught her to be self-reliant. She said she was never the girl who acted like a ‘big deal’, even when she was the big deal: “I have not ever taken myself too seriously, in the sense, I took my work seriously, but I never took myself that seriously, like, ‘I’m Madhu Sapre, the supermodel, so I have to behave a certain way or not say hi to people and walk like this.’ No, never. I love people.”
Her current wellness routine is as real as it gets
While social media is selling you flaxseed face masks and banana peels as ‘natural Botox’, Madhu, who was seen in the 2003 film Boom alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Katrina Kaif, has never touched actual Botox. Ever. “I’ve always been a very natural girl. Putting something in my body that is not natural just feels very strange to me,” she said.
Her skincare mantra? “Hydrate inside and out, keep your gut clean. Exercise a little every day. Getting a good 8-hour sleep is very important. A sound mind is very important,” Madhu, who is in her 50s, shared. The one product she never travels without: a biphasic makeup remover. She said she started investing in the best removers and sunscreens from her very first modelling paycheck.
Her fitness has evolved, too. The high-intensity runs on the beach are on pause due to knee issues. Now it’s long walks and freehand exercises. “I have become a lot more accepting and less critical of my body. As we grow older, we need to eat less and have fewer alcoholic beverages,” she said. Her mantra now: “Discipline and balance. Do a little every day. Know your limitations, too.”
And food? She cooks everything at home. She and her 14-year-old daughter Indira eat out maybe twice a month. Her favourite things to cook are dal, rice and fish fry — and she makes pizza, Thai food, Chinese dishes, and everything in between. “You know, this is what keeps me sane and normal,” she said.
She chose motherhood over the spotlight
Madhu’s last show before her break was in 2010 with Naomi Campbell in Mumbai. Then she stepped away — she was trying for a baby with her ex-husband and was ‘living out of a suitcase’. She thought she’d return soon. Life had other plans. Now a single mom in Italy, where she has lived for 27 years, she is busy raising her daughter, Indira.
“I have had personal challenges in the last few years, which I have overcome alone, by myself, also because I was so organised,” she said. “So my base was very strong, like a soldier, no? Alone, you are fighting everything,” she added.
So when people ask her ‘Why don’t you just come back to India and do more shows?’ — a question she gets constantly after her appearances for Masaba Gupta‘s show in July 2026 (her first ramp walk in 16 years) and Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla’s store launch — the answer is nuanced: “It’s not easy to just move.”
Her work now has to fit her life, not the other way around: “It’s not a formal comeback, but I can do a few exclusive projects in a year. Exclusive work, which gels with my personality and my priorities.” What does work mean to her now? “It builds my self-confidence, keeps me excited, motivated, and has also given me financial independence, which I feel is so important for any woman.” Madhu shared. As for Indira, she is raising her with five words: ‘simplicity, honesty, discipline, kindness, and being grateful’.
She has built a spiritual armour around her inner life
In an industry that ‘makes a product out of the self’, Madhu figured out early how to protect her soul. She did Vipassana twice in Igatpuri back in the late 1990s. She read Jiddu Krishnamurti, Hermann Hesse, and books on Buddha. She went to counselling when she needed it. “Keeping your soul intact is an everyday work, something you are born with, something you have to work on by introspection,” she said.
“I never sold my soul to the devil, I never compromised to get work or step on anyone’s toes. My actions are good, there is a harmony between what I think, say, and do,” Madhu said. She doesn’t need validation from social media, and she tells young models the same: “Not to look at social media as a validation of who you are, but do whatever is necessary for your career or professional needs.” She added, “I need validation from the people I love — my parents, close ones… I want them to say, ‘Madhu, yes, you did a great job.'”
She shared that she lights a diya every morning, says ‘thank you’, prays for the world, for animals who can’t speak, and then calls her 83-year-old mother in India. If her mom is fine, she says, she is a happy girl. When I asked if she is a perfectionist, she laughed: “Half-half.”
“I also learned that you can’t have it all,” Madhu said. But by prioritising what truly matters — her daughter, her peace, her dog Spikey, and that first cup of coffee she dreams about the night before — Madhu Sapre isn’t just surviving far away from the spotlight. She is thriving, entirely on her own terms. And as I wait for her next WhatsApp message to pop up on my screen, I’m reminded that true glamour isn’t about how a camera sees you. It’s about how gently and how deeply you see yourself and the world.
