I'm not a great judge of beauty and I'm strictly against the idea of holding beauty contests. But I do have a broad sense of what or who catches the eye and is like they say 'a sight for sore eyes'. So when I saw a short news clipping of India's entry to the Miss Universe contest 2009 I muttered uncharitably 'Not in a million years- she wont make it!' I wasnt surprised when I saw the toothy Miss Venezuela beaming at me from the papers next morning. The Indian contestant didnt even make it to the last 15. I am puzzled why she was sent in the first place. Or like every other sphere has corruption seeped into this field too?
Traditionally, before the 90s, Indians always came away with the best costume/ best hair/ best smile/(best eyes even) prize. They never made it to the top 10 because apparently they were not tall and athletic enough. Well, the first one to come close to sniffing the winners' podium was Madhu Sapre who was tall, leggy and had all the right answers...almost. She goofed up at the last decider question: what will you do if you became the prime minister of your country?
She hadnt mugged up all the world-changing, altruisitic answers (like being Mother Theresa, removing poverty, etc) and instead said she wanted to open a sports complex in every village in the country! It was a damn good answer if you ask me and showed how keen she was in sports but the judges didnt buy it. They dropped her like hot cake and she was third runner up. (Madhu, I know why India never wins Olympic medals)
The Indian makeover mafia came in after that year and thus began our success story. Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra- there were several at both the Miss Worlds and Universes. AT last we had decoded the secret to the crown and like Venezuela, Columbia and Puerto Rico were breeding beauty queens by the dozens. The designers, the media, the brands all joined in the bandwagon. And after the crown the film industry embraced them with open arms into a career in the limelight. An enviable life for a woman craving for the arclights.
Beauty contests are big business today. They are the factories for our models, actresses, anchors, news readers, singers, ribbon cutters, etc etc. But this is provided they win and stumble up the podium. What is the future for the ones who fail? I dread to think.
1 comment:
the new toothy miss universe should remain just in the outer realms of our universe...outer space is what i recommend, than wearing that crown. she didnt seem that appealing, at least nt to me. frankly, most of the time i hv trouble recognizing one beauty pageant winner from the other. so i dnt think it is just with our own indigenous beauty contest that we hv a problem.
on second thoughts, they might hv done the right thing by declaring miss puerto rico as the winner- that seems to be the only publicity they seem to get on world television.
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