Monday, December 29, 2014

Diary of an ex femina miss india contest

It’s a cold winter morning and the quilt feels like my BFF right now warming me up as I go through my FB homepage.  Almost every second update is about some pageant or someone getting married, its winters so you do expect your fb page to get flooded with big fat indian wedding pictures but updates  about the potential beauty queens and the fans bashing other contestant to show support to their favorite contestant is something I’ve never understood .

Miss India didn’t just happen to me but I worked my butt off to be there in the top slot. I had prepared many years and groomed for it, worked hard on my body, gone through painful beauty procedures, three hours of gyming, yoga, buying makeup and dresses that costed me a bomb. Saying like this might sound cliché that ‘ Its always had been my dream to be a Miss India’  it indeed was mine too.

On the day of selection I got ready using my youtube taught techniques which I’ve been learning for years now and did hot bouncy wavy hair and Victoria secret kinda makeup ( gorgeously natural with heavy lashes) and reached the venue where a team of hair and makeup artists was doing it for the unprepared girls i.e the not-so-intrested girls who never really cared of grooming themselves but were there because the pageant lovers think they were beautiful and don’t even need to know that its ‘pageant’ and not ‘paegent’  cuse the team will make them win it anyways . It was a long and tiring process but the judges liked me and there I was standing amongst selected contestants and posing for the media like a venezulean beauty queen ( admit it that we all do it the Venezuelan way even if its about India).

And now started the real thing-The training. The team sounded very particular about being punctual, diet and the blah blah blah so we obeyed the rules (ok sometimes not coz of the late night so called official parties and shots  were too much to handle) . Being an avid follower of Miss India for so many years I must say that they are doing it better and better each year in terms of sponsors, dresses, designers, location etc  and even the coming year looks so posh. Our training was tough but fruitful. I’ve met the best people from the industry, be it for diction, costumes, diet, communication etc. I would like to mention Sabira Merchant ahh! what a lady, I don’t have enough words to express how much I adore this lady,apart from her the team included the best of the best. The pageant always have a favourite and the deciding factor is how apt you are for bollywood screen… and this favourite from the organization becomes the favourite of the pageant predictors because they can sense it that she is gonna win and they tag her as their favourite coz they don’t want their  elite expert predictor tag in danger…Well, There were times when the girls,myself included actually wanted to turn into a chandalika and vomit all that they knew was happening inside and wanted to kill the fav girl but keeping in mind their one in billion chance of getting that main crown,they resisted it everytime . Apart from that we never really had cat fights coz the cold wars substituted very well for that, the chaperons were the real spies who use to tell the team what their favorite has been up to.. but only if they were ready to listen.

Talking about the subcontests..well I think the sub-contests are a complete joke because it doesn’t count anywhere in the main score,some subtle and their titles were so bizarre. No matter what they say that your behavior is being noticed, we are going to select the top finalist on the basis of your punctuality etc etc- its BULLSHIT because the ones selected (top 10-12)  from our batch on the main day were too dumb to answer, were throughout known for their unpunctuality, tagged as stubborn by the chaperons and yes too weak to question the results. The drama went on for long and their favorites were announced the winners and now its time to fake how shocked we were to see them win- whatever, we knew it was coming,were quite prepared and already had our gossip session with fellow ‘deserving’ mates  how it was going to happen so it was a dull moment for us. I honestly didn't think I was gonna win,I thought I would either win it all or nothing,and I was happy not to win any mundane title,I was more upset about the girls whom I knew deserved more then they got.

 

For their fav(winner)  they have a policy and it is ‘saat khoon maaf’ it doesn’t matter what you do you’ll always be our fav.. so anyways its all about the ultimate  winner and it doesn’t count how good the other contestants were and its India, even if the hero kills the villian’s 36 rented gundays and someone stops him from killing the real villian, he is announced ‘bekasoor’. But besides this, it was something  I will always cherish,my journey, I’ve met the most beautiful souls, such inspiring people, I’ve seen amazing talents and so much more. It is indeed like a fairytale only a part of it is scripted otherwise it makes you believe in the power of your dreams. And it has given me so much in terms of knowledge, exposure, publicity (even my dry-cleaner and the bar-tenders in my city they know who I am ;p). I just wish it was more real and provided equal justice to the better deserving girls (there were so many girls who were better in every way )there was no sense of competition which takes away the drive in every girl(including the winner) to put in their bet and fight for the crown,nationally and internationally.   And then you pageant lovers say why is India lacking, yes we read all ur comments and know each of your names and ur tags,it's because 1 or 2 girls are chosen to win,1 more is chosen as potential among 5 6 hopefuls,rest are filler.  How can India place if the girl is all about the looks, no brains, dolled up by the army of hired professionals and marketed by your country’s leading publishing house.. You need a girl who can speak for herself, dress up like a million bucks on her own, has networking skills, dominates with her mere presence on the world stage- that’s what you call a personality cuse you can’t send your team of professional along with your future bollywood diva to talk, walk  and rock on her behalf. We as country need a wholesome representative,not an idea of that representative backed by experts who cuts the umbilical cord the moment their paycheck arrives.

But what I learned from my Miss India experience was they always look for potential Bollywood queen and not beauty queens. So the girls who want to enroll themselves in this major pageant should understand that ‘Miss India has always been my dream’ actually means ‘ I’m desperate to get into bollywood’. I hope Miss India organization takes a notice of their downfalls and gives us real beauty queens coz they are investing a lot but are sailing in wrong direction . Their investments should also be on a girl who will fight till the end like example Vanya Mishra,in a normal scenario,she wudve been top 10 at best, by fluke,luck or destiny,she won and till now remains Miss world 2012 in the hearts of many people. It's a beauty pageant,the winner is not gonna suit everybody's taste,there are some people today who still claims to not find Aishwarya Rai beautiful and might pass a lie detector test saying it.,but we are all beautiful,what's lacking is the substance and drive that used to be the criteria to win,there were years when a stunning girl didn't make past top 10 coz she had nothing but her beauty,now the same girl would win in today's scenario and no offense to her,God bless her but she will be lost internationally!The most beautiful girl can be lost in a sea of most beautiful girls from 80 countries,the most wholesome and driven girl will make everyone stand up and read her sash,and that's when u call a girl stunning,she literally stuns you,so let's find a girl among 30 beautiful girls who is the most stunning and yes,competition is necessary,even if you don't win,you can blame yourself ,walk out learning lessons on how to improve,winners appreciate her crown and value it,plonking a crown on a on the basis of facial beauty only makes the winner lazy and the rest of the girls bitter.

Would i take part again?most probably not . Will I cherish it?absolutely,to this day I can safely tell myself that I didn't lose coz I never competed for Femina Miss India,I was just a participant like the rest of my coz contestants.

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