• If not a Celebrity, what they would have been?

• by: Meenakshi  |  last updated: July 16, 2008

• Category: Bollywood |  Tags: bollywood, celebrities, Amitabh Bachchan, amisha patel, John Abraham, Nagesh Kukunoor, Shekhar Kapur, Shankar Mahadevan

• With college admissions in full swing, let's have a look at the celebrities who earned their degrees, but bucked convention and followed their dreams.
  
  ‘Education is the key to everything in life. It opens all doors. You can be a model, actor or do anything else to follow your passion, education is what will stay with you forever. You can always fall back on your education.' - Preity Zinta

• Amisha Patel, Actor

• What she should have been? : Corporate Officer
  
  She did her schooling from Cathedral High School and graduation in economics from Tufts University (Boston). She then worked for Morgan Stanley for some time.
  
  

• Amitabh Bachchan, Actor

• What he should have been? : Teacher
  
  He studied at Allahabad Boys’ High School (BHS), followed by Nainital’s Sherwood College, where he majored in the Arts stream. Later he went to Delhi to earn a double M.A. (Master of Arts) degree from the Delhi University. It is believed that Amitabh’s mother had some degree of influence in his choice of career because she herself had a keen interest in theatre. She always insisted that Amitabh should take the centre stage.

• John Abraham, Actor

• What he should have been? : Media planner
  
  He worked as a media planner at Enterprise-Nexus, an ad agency in Mumbai, before becoming an actor. He did his Bachelors in Economics and then went on to do Masters in Management Studies (MMS) from Mumbai Educational Trust (MET).

• Nagesh Kukunoor, Director

• What he should have been? : Chemical Engineer
  
  After doing his Chemical Engineering from Osmania University in Hyderabad, film-maker Nagesh Kukunoor moved to Atlanta in 1988. There he completed his MS degree at Georgia Institute of Technology. He worked as an environmental consultant in Atlanta.

• Shekhar Kapur, Director

• What he should have been? : Chartered Accountant
  
  The nephew of actors Vijay Anand and Dev Anand, Shekhar Kapur was discouraged to set foot into the film world by his father. After he pursued his economics course at St. Stephen’s College, Kapur became a chartered accountant, having studied accountancy to please his parents.
  
  He then moved to Great Britain and spent several years working as an accountant and management consultant. However, the call of passion was too much and he plunged himself into filmmaking and earned respect with Masoom (1983) and the 1987 science-fiction film Mr India.

• Shankar Mahadevan, Singer

• What he could have been? : Software Engineer
  
  Shankar has an engineering degree in computer science. After completing his engineering, he did a small stint in a software company called Oracle Corporation. But he gave it up to pursue his passion for music.

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