Born on November 24, 1981, Celina Jaitly was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. She belongs to a Punjabi family - her father V.K. Jaitley served in the Indian Army as a Colonel, while her mother Meeta, an Afghan Hindu, was a nurse in the Indian Army. Her brother Vikrant too is in the Indian Army. (All photos/Celina Jaitly's official Instagram account, AFP and mid-day archives)

Celina Jaitly's father passed away in 2017 due to a prolonged illness. The actress was then expecting her second set of twins with husband Peter Haag and was hit with this tragedy.

Pictured: Celina Jaitley shared this picture of her late father and wrote an emotional note that read: "To her, the name of father was another name for love." ... There is nothing more that I want than to be back in this moment with you Pappy... I miss you so much... I love you and think about you all the time... (My late father Colonel Vikram Kumar Jaitly SM)

11 months after her father's demise, Celina Jaitly lost her mother Meeta Jaitly.

Pictured: Celina Jaitly shared this picture on Instagram and wrote alongside: Here I am thinking about you Ma, I am thinking about those moments I spent with you and the joy I got from being your daughter. There is not a single day since your death that I don't miss you, I love you and think about you, Mom! My mind still talks to you, I miss you!

Celina Jaitly was a 'Miss India' and a fourth runner-up in the 'Miss Universe' contest. She has starred in films such as Janasheen, No Entry, Apna Sapna Money Money and Golmaal Returns.

Pictured: Celina Jaitly shared this picture in 2018 on her Instagram account and wrote alongside: On January 27, Yesterday 18 years ago ... I was crowned Ms India Universe 2001 ... life would never be same again.. Thank you Universe !!!

Though Celina Jaitly's acting career never took off, the former beauty queen made a name for herself for espousing the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) cause.

Pictured: A still from Celina Jaitly's Bollywood debut Janasheen. She shared this picture on Instagram and captioned: #happybirthday to my dear friend @shaahidamir .. meet the wonderful #designer behind the gorgeous #bikinis which lead my image from my film #Janasheen to be frozen amongst the most #memorable images of #bollywood .. May you always continue to shine dear Aamir.

Celina Jaitly says justice to the Indian LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community is long overdue, and that the law must put an end to the legal platform that segregates the community from others.

Pictured: Twenty-one-year-old Celina Jaitly (C) is crowned Femina Miss India-Universe at a ceremony in Mumbai, January 27, 2001. At left is 20-year-old Femina Miss India, Sara Corner, and right is Maheshwari Thyagrajan, Femina Miss India Asia-Pacific 2001. The three women were meant to represent India in the three categories -- Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss Asia-Pacific respectively.

In an earlier interview with IANS, Celina Jaitly had said, "Whether India accepts it or not, the fact of the matter is that there are millions of LGBT individuals in our country and they deserve the same set of rights and protection by law as every other citizen. An LGBT person has multiple struggles in all aspects of life, specifically women who in any case have to face many battles in our society."

Pictured: Celina Jaitly shared this rare, unseen picture of hers with Amitabh Bachchan on his birthday and wrote alongside, "Dear sir @amitabhbachchan Your theatrical genius is one the world has never seen and will never see! You are a true icon. I hope your Big Day is as phenomenal as you and your kindhearted magnanimous soul!"

Celina Jaitly, who has always spoken up for the rights of the LGBT community, says she was ostracised by her colleagues, friends and family for fighting for their rights but this did not deter her and she kept going.

Pictured: Celina Jaitly shared this picture on Instagram and wrote alongside: #throwback a #hilarious picture of 17 year old ME .. LOL !! Had just started modelling... I think this was for some sort of swimsuit catalogue. What do you think of the pose?

In 2018, an ecstatic Celina Jaitly called it a historic judgement by the Supreme Court, which decriminalised homosexuality between consulting adults by declaring Section 377, the penal provision which criminalised gay sex as "manifestly arbitrary". Hailing the verdict, Celina told IANS in a message, "I waited every single day for last 15 years of my life as an LGBT activist with great hope and optimism and it's finally happened, I, as a true patriot, always had one principle and that being. I do not accept discrimination should be preserved as a tradition, or that violence should be treasured as a part of any culture."

Celina Jaitly is a United Nations equality champion who promotes its Free and Equal campaign.

Pictured: Celina Jaitly shared this gorgeous photo of hers and shared an interesting insight from her personal life. She wrote: Apparently I am a spitting image of my paternal grandmother who was s Kashmiri pandit... when you have so many different bloodlines running within you... where do you look for your true identity is a question someone recently asked me... As far as I know my self, my identity is a combined effort of many who made me... Most importantly.. what "I" made of my life.. will carry the genes I am blessed with and pass them to my sons with a sense of responsibility to appreciate diversity in our world and within ourselves...

Celina Jaitly says her struggle and fight for equal rights has paid off. "Today history is made, millions will breath the first breath of freedom. Our apex courts have changed the course of regressive thinking to a progressive one with today's decision. I am so happy that years I had struggled for many will come to an end and my children will have the opportunity to belong to a country which catered to its each and every citizen's rights," said Celina.

Pictured: Yet another throwback picture shared by Celina Jaitly from her younger days! She captioned this picture: #throwback to 16 & 17 year old "Me" back in my #modelling days in #Kolkata... just before I won #msindia 2001 .. Wonderful memories... felt like sharing a snippet of my incredible journey in the world of modelling & cinema since the age of 17...

On the personal front, in 2010, Celina Jaitly married businessman Peter Haag and the couple are settled in Dubai. She shuttles between Dubai, Singapore and Mumbai for her work. The couple was blessed with twin boys in 2018. The names of the boys are Winston and Viraaj.

On their wedding anniversary, Celina wrote a long post dedicated to her husband that read: He is Austrian I am Indian and we are a completely insane international family. Even though our love began like an unreal and ethereal romantic film, 9 years later both of us question our sanity often with 7-year-old twins @winstonjhaag @viraajjhaag and a two-year-old baby boy (haha) but we are so glad for all the blessings amongst many other Gods plans within our journey together. I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify that contrary to the massive pre-marriage pregnancy rumours doing the rounds on various websites I would like to share with all our followers that Peter n I got married with blessings of our parents in court in Austria on 23rd Sept 2010 and made it official only one year later when we got the wonderful news of being pregnant with twins. Our journey has been blessed but God tested our journey with the death of both my parents and circumstances of losing our son as well as @arthurjhaag s Time in the Neonatal intensive care for two months, (all at the same time). Having said that, I can’t imagine not having my Austrian mountaineer husband by my side... Anyways he can’t get away .. at least for 7 lifetimes ... someone just told him the meaning of 7 agni pheras ... Ye Saat janmo ja rishta hai .. Once again thank you all for your continued love and blessings this journey could not have been possible without it.

Celina Jaitly went through a rough patch in 2017. She lost her father, while she was expecting her second set of twins. Later, she announced the arrival of her second set of twin boys, Arthur and Shamsher, but unfortunately, their son Shamsher passed away due to a heart ailment.

Celina Jaitly shared this picture with her three sons recently and wrote alongside, "In German, we say "spazieren gehen" (to go for a walk, to take a stroll). Being back home in the Austrian Alps reminds me so much of growing up in the Kumaon Hills, I do the same things my mother did with me, she had two and I have 3, If we don't care for our planet this will not be possible anymore. Climate change is real and our children's children may never have the opportunity to still do this in snow patched mountains in summer if we don't take action now."

Celina Jaitly returned to the screen with Ram Kamal Mukherjee's Hindi film A Tribute to Rituparno Ghosh: Season's Greetings. Speaking about why she took a break from films, Celina said in an interview, "I had taken a purposeful break from cinema because of reasons best known to me and this had nothing to do with the fact that I got married. I was just tired and exhausted of how difficult it kept getting for an outsider to continuously strive to find the roles which celebrate the actor within."

As Celina turns 39 today, we wish her a very happy birthday!