Know more about Reita Faria, India's first-ever Miss World

New Delhi: Reita Faria was one of the best known Indians worldwide in her times. She is the the first Indian to wear the Miss World crown in 1966.She is a qualified medical practitioner and now resides in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband Dr Colin Powell, whom she married in 1971. The couple has two daughters and five grandchildren.Reita Faria Powel was born in 1945 in Mumbai. Reita grew up in Mumbai with her sister Philomena in a tight-knit Goan family that owned real estate and other businesses.Reita Faria was a student at the Grant Medical College & Sir J. J. Group of Hospitals where she completed her M.B.B.S. degree.Many remember seeing her on television, during reruns of the Bob Hope show in South Vietnam, staged soon after she won the Miss World crown in 1966.Reita Faria shifted to Ireland in 1972 with her husband Dr Colin Powell, and never left.She stated in an interview that she entered the beauty contest more for fun and stayed the course till she became Miss World. She says she was never enamoured of the bright lights of being a celebrity. Being a doctor was more important to her.She was six months away from qualifying as a doctor when she won the Miss World title in 1966.She gave up her medical career in 1977-1978 for bringing up her kids. Last year she was among several Goan origin individuals felicitated during the UK Goan Festival, which is a major event in the annual cultural calendar that attracted nearly 9,000 visitors.