I gave up modelling and became a monk

At 45, former model Lama Aria Drolma turned to monasticism. She tells Drishti Rakhra about the transition

One day, young Aria brought idols of Mother Mary, Jesus Christ, and Joseph into her Hindu home without informing her father. As usual, he had picked 10 flowers, to place at the feet of each Hindu idol that had a permanent spot in their in-house temple. When he came across the three additions, he huffed in annoyance momentarily before yelling out to his wife, “Add three more flowers to the bunch from tomorrow!” 

Her household was emblematic of India’s tolerance, a post-Independence, post-liberalisation India that celebrated its diversity. Aria grew up surrounded by all kinds of cultures. She was born in Kodagu, a small town that is simply a “dot on the map”, she says. She then studied in Good Shepherd Convent in Mysuru before eventually moving to Bengaluru for higher studies. She was deeply influenced by Christianity, Islam, and even Zoroastrianism, and adopted each culture from friends she was surrounded by. 

Around the same time, a teacher asked her class what they wanted to be when they grow up. Aria (who was originally named Aira) announced that she would like to be a nun. The entire class laughed. What kind of child dreams of becoming a nun, in a convent no less, surrounded by nuns already? As it turned out, Aria became an advertising executive, an air hostess, and a model before finally settling into a lifestyle not many pick: a Buddhist monk. 

When she did eventually choose the path of monasticism, her long-term friends were not surprised. They remembered the traces of spirituality she exhibited when she was a young girl. But there were also a fair share of people who didn’t understand her decision, of moving from a life of glamour and luxury to one of austerity and detachment. This set of people asked her, now Lama Aria Drolma, “What was the moment you knew you wanted to become a monk?” 

“There never is one specific moment!,” she says with some frustration. We are sitting in the coffee shop of a newly-minted grocery store on Bengaluru’s M G Road. She drinks from a bottle of sugarcane juice.

I had already been there a while before she arrived. When she got there, she was in the middle of a phone call and mouthed a quick sorry as she spoke. She wore a long red kurta, flowing red trousers, and was wrapped in a red dupatta. 

Back in India

She’s visiting India after a long hiatus of 17 years. She’s spent all this time in the US.

Of the India of the late 2000s, she remembers great freedom and culture. “If India weren’t on the world map, I don’t know what the others would’ve done! We’ve given so much to them!” The west is doing so much with our culture, she insists, expressing great surprise over how well they respond to ideas of meditation and mindful living. 

“You know,” she tells me while taking a sip of her juice, “Modelling has always followed me.” At 19, Aria won a beauty contest and was immediately whisked away into the complex, intense world of modelling. Her phone gallery remains full of pictures of younger days that can easily be described as ‘glitzy’ and ‘glamorous’. She shows me a picture of herself with a billionaire philanthropist, who seems unremarkable, until you search for him and discover his net worth. The level was up there, she says.

There is no wistfulness in her voice. It is as if she is telling stories of someone she is deeply fond of. I am about to ask her whether she misses those days, but the question leaves my mind. Aria is now 60, having been an ordained nun for about 15 years.

Two days after we speak, she sends me a picture of herself with Shashi Kapoor’s less known son, Karan. They had modelled for a shoe brand together. Her modelling career is a map of Indian brands from the late 90s-early 2000s. She was sought after for her tall stature and luscious, thick hair. Even when she moved away from modelling and worked for an airline company based in Hong Kong, she found herself in front of the camera, shooting advertisements for the airline. Becoming a model was not a calculated decision. She simply followed the opportunities that came her way. 

Striking ‘gold’

Seventeen years ago, Aria made a New Year’s resolution. She was living in New York at the time. Like anyone else beginning a year full of hope, she decided that 2008 was the year to meditate more. Within 10 days of beginning meditation sessions, she realised that she had “stumbled upon gold”. The pull towards spirituality was strong, and she could feel something shift. By mid-January, she met her guru, Lama Norlha Rinpoche, for the first time. She knew immediately that he would be her teacher. 

There are several different lineages within Buddhism, carrying the wisdom of various histories. Aria ended up at the monastery started by her teacher, later called the Palpung Monastery. She made her way to Upstate New York once a week and gradually began to feel an internal shift. It is the monastery where she currently lives. 

At the time, she was surrounded by big names in the fashion world. She had just completed a two-year run of Red Choli, her own label, which specialised in tunics and shawls. The label achieved massive success. Every week, she was given a stall at Javits Centre (an acclaimed convention centre in New York), and was in the thick of everything glamorous. She did close down the label eventually, but not before her work made its way into museums — her tunics and shawls were displayed in the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York, Newark Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “I always wanted to reach for the stars,” she says.

Every moment she describes is accompanied by a picture to back it up. Her long overdue visit to India was prompted by the Asian Buddhist Summit’s invitation to be a moderator on the East Asia panel.

The event brought together about 700 monks from around the world. She proudly shows me pictures from the summit too — of various teachers, gatherings, and herself greeting revered gurus. 

“Oh there were many women at the summit! They are doing their best to maintain gender equality,” she says showing me a picture of herself with Droupadi Murmu, both smiling and looking keenly at the camera. The President of the country was the chief guest at the summit. 

Since then, she’s given several talks across the country, including at a meditation centre in Nagpur, and a hospital in Bengaluru.

This return has also made one thing clear — that people in the west respond to spirituality differently. She cites examples of several short courses on meditation and compassion, offered by Stanford University. Mindfulness and meditation are key in the work culture of some parts of the US. Buddhism is not simply a religion, but has found its way into more secular parts of the world through its practices.

An important part of her practice is to teach people everything she has learnt from Tibetan Buddhism. She thinks of herself as a vessel through which Buddhist practices reach others. I ask her what she hopes to achieve through her practices. “Enlightenment”, she says with a smile. “It might be achieved in one lifetime if you are lucky. It takes most people a few lifetimes at least,” she adds. 

Excess to minimalism

While she lived in Hong Kong, her mother had a heart attack and passed away. After the cremation, when Aria saw her mother’s ashes, it struck her as strange that the larger-than-life woman so dear to her was reduced to ashes. Later, when they began to gather her things, she opened her mother’s cupboard and found hundreds of Kanjeevaram sarees. To her, it felt excessive… “as if we’re all going to live forever,” she states. It didn’t make sense to her.

Some time later, she moved to New York and was working in a fashion house. One day, she discovered that the mail guy she saw everyday had passed away, and no one spoke about it. “Most regular people leave the earth without a trace,” she says, adding, “unless you’re really lucky like an actress or Mahatma Gandhi.” She asks a question that has
been asked since human beings gained sentience — what is the point of all this? 

She had lived in Hong Kong, London and Hawaii, eating the best food and wearing luxury labels.

At the monastery, the lifestyle change was absolute. It requires discipline and clear mind. She now lives with about 20 other monks who hail from different countries and religions. “It is like a mini-United Nations”, she says with a laugh. 

As she became more involved in her meditations, she learned to let go of friends, travel, and even the
conventional idea of family life. Helping others became more important to her.

“My choice may appear as renunciation, but in essence it is a shift towards a life of greater fulfilment, peace, and inner joy,” she says.

Her daily routine includes meditation, prayer, study and practice. She explains that this commitment demands unwavering focus, and adapting to a life of simplicity is a challenge. All monks are expected to wear monastic robes and keep their heads shaved. Everyday life is an ongoing practice of patience, humility, and selflessness.

A way of life

She points out to me that one does not ‘convert’ to Buddhism, but adopts it into their lives. No one is expected to leave behind their religion or identity. Every morning, all the monks meet to chant prayers for two hours, after which they go back into their rooms and continue their practice individually. For lunch, they all come together and alternate cooking responsibilities. Around the monastery, Aria is known for her food. She is an expert at dal-rice (which is her favourite) and cooks a mean potato au gratin. This community is an important part of daily life. The life of a monk is not a life of isolation, but one of coming together. On each day of the week, the monastery also has different rituals. It is open to the public. People usually come in to offer prayers or seek blessings. On New Year last year, they had about 600 visitors. 

We take a small break and look around the grocery store we are at. Immediately, she zeros in on the chaat counter and insists that I eat, also ordering a little snack for herself.  

Modern Buddhist 

The sugarcane juice is over now and she moves on to a pomegranate juice. She looks confident as she describes a possible future — the country and its politics might have changed, but she’s bringing together both the secular and the religious to offer people a way of living more carefully and mindfully. Her spiritual and religious roots are as solid as the bodhi tree. 

“I’ve always been a little mischievous,” she says with a laugh, and I begin to feel like we’ve been friends for years, “except for the three-year retreat I attended.” 

She shows me a picture of the first time her head was shaved. “It was the biggest honour,” she says, to be ordained by her guru, Lama Norlha Rinpoche. She then travelled to the Palpung Monastery in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, before attending a retreat in New York that went on for 3 years, 3 months, and 3 days. The retreat was incredibly strict, and laid the foundation for her practice as a monk. She describes the experience as fairly academic, like any other study which requires hard work. Her batch had a total of 14 people — 7 men, and 7 women. Most monks, she clarifies, are incredibly smart individuals. They are doctors and architects, and have graduated from America’s best universities. 

Each monk has their own set of precepts — rules they live by, that cannot be violated at any cost. Aria has her own. Outside of these, she remains a vibrant personality who loves food. Now and then, she even finds herself window shopping at luxury department stores in New York, simply looking but never wanting. Her role is clear to her — she’s the modern Buddhist.