Tiny slumdog princess makes it big

Three years ago an inquisitive American tourist wandered into a waterfront slum in Mumbai and met a tiny, smiley girl.

Maleesha Kharwa is now 15 - still tiny, with the same winning smile, despite her family living on a shoreline strewn with garbage, but now renting a one-room apartment.

Indian cosmetics brand Forest Essentials chose Maleesha as the face of its Yuvati campaign celebrating young Indian women. Before that, she shared a cover of Cosmopolitan India magazine that bore the line: "Guts! Guts! Guts!"

Maleesha hopes these successes will be the springboard to a career as a model or dancer, though she intends to finish school.

"I feel good, because I look different on camera and in real life," she said.

In 2020, American actor Robert Hoffman posted on social media of time spent with the girl, who lost her mother at a young age, and her family.

Hoffman helped her launch a Go Fund Me campaign and since then she has become an influencer using the hashtag "the princess from the slum."