Where have the beauties gone

Jasmine Singh

And…we missed it! Maintaining the consistency of the last 15 years, this time too, Indian beauty Urvashi Rautela is out of the Miss Universe race. This time again, we don’t have a muah muah moment. In fact, the last air kiss moment was in the year 2000, when Lara Dutta was crowned the Miss Universe and Priyanka Chopra the Miss World. 

Despite the innumerable beauty pageants held in every nook and corner of the country, despite the extensive grooming classes, modules and programmes that go behind the preparations of Miss India’s, our country hasn’t reinstated its glory for the last 15 years, no glitter of the crown, no sash hanging stylishly. And the reasons, let’s hear it…

Why and how

If you were to go back to the 90’s and the early 2000’s, India’s glory at the international beauty pageants was absolutely matchless. In fact, the much-celebrated National Director of Venezuela, Osmel Sousa had once said, “If India enters top 5 slot of any pageant, it is time for other countries to pack their bags. No country has achieved such a huge accomplishment of winning four Miss World, two Miss Universe, one Miss Asia Pacific and several runner-ups and placements in just six years! Indian beauty queens are certainly a league of their own.”

But the graph has certainly gone down, with India packing its bag from the pageants in the last 15 years. Says Evelyn Sharma, actress and model, “Indian girls are the most beautiful, and I am sure we will do better next time. I don’t see a single point to zero in but yes, the long gap has spoilt things. Earlier, the models appearing in the international pageants had reference points from the ones that had won the title before. It was kind of passing on the learning to the following batch. Since, we haven’t won for a long time, we seem to have lost touch with it.” 

It seems the beauty and fashion industry doesn’t know the point to zero in on.  

Anuj Sachdev, who has worked with supermodels, a model-actor himself, blames it on the pressure and the similar kind of training module. “Their needs to be a change in the grooming programme, the similar fitness, similar IQ and EQ, this module should be refurbished as per the international standards. What worked 10 or 15 years before, doesn’t work now. Also, let’s blame it on luck as well.”

Destiny’s child 

Even though many models from the beauty section don’t want to pass on the blame on anyone, they surely think destiny has a big role to play. Anmol Sandhu, Mrs Queen of Substance 2015, Mrs East-Asia Earth 2015, Mrs Earth runner up 2015, does bring in destiny, at the same time she does feel we need to work more on our Indianism. “India has won maximum titles after Venezuela, and we will be winning many more. However, we need to be us in these pageants, show our culture, and at the same time maintain international standards.” 

Being Indian 

Grooming the beauties to hold up an international pageant takes quite a toll on them. At the same time, it is this grooming process that some are questioning. Actor and super model Dino Morea suggests some changes in this section. “I don’t see there is anything wrong with how the beauties present themselves, and neither is anything wrong with the people training them, we just need some international inputs in this grooming programme.” Dino also throws in the word Indian-ness, “the more you are yourself, the more you reflect your own country, chances of being liked on the international stage increase.” 

jasmine@tribunemail.com

She miss-ed it!

India's Urvashi Rautela, who has described herself as the 'youngest Indian Bollywood actress to win maximum number of beauty titles in entire pageant history ever' on Instagram, was out of the Miss Universe 2015 pageant, which was being held at Planet Hollywood in las Vegas.

Urvashi, who was born in Kotdwar in Uttarakhand, could not make it to the final 15.

In 2009, at the age of 15, she clinched the Miss Teen India crown. Two years later, she won two titles - Miss Asian Supermodel and Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International. 

In 2012, she bagged the Miss Universe India title but was later dethroned as she did not meet the age requirement.  — IANS