NORTH AMERICAN SPECIAL • SOCIETY

**Taken from the December 13, 1999 India Today International**

Beautiful Betis

The beauties came from across the globe. But Miss India Worldwide was all about roots and identity. 

By LAVINA MELWANI 

    THERE’S NO BEAUTY LIKE Indian beauty, and no desh like apna desh. These seemed to be the sentiments of the 1000 - strong audience at the Ninth Annual Miss lndia Worldwide Pageant held on November 27 at the Union County Arts Center in Rahway. New Jersey. 

Billed as the Pageant of the Millennium by the organisers, the event featured young women, aged 17 to 27, from 20 nations including the UK, South Africa, UAE, Switzerland, Bel­gium, Hong Kong and several Caribbean countries. Most of them were born abroad and had not even been to India. Yet what was most im­portant that evening was the Indian part of their hyphenated identities. 

Unlike other beauty pageants this one had a cheerfully NRI  flavour to it: many of the contestants were just over 5 feet tall. their vital statistics were not announced, and no swimsuits were in sight. The emphasis was on poise, talent and costumes—a formula that has served the pageant well over the years. 

            “We’ve simply called it a pageant because our contestants are supposed to he intelligent and talented besides being beautiful,” says Dharmatma Saran, whose India Festival Committee organises the event. The committee, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, initiated the first pageant—Miss India New York—in 1974. Over the years the pageant has been fine-tuned. Next year’s event will he held in Tampa, Florida. Also in the works is the first ever Miss Asia Worldwide pageant in 2000.

This year’s event was a five-hour marathon consisting of the contes­tants in Indian dress, evening dress, and a talent segment. The appearances were interspersed with the rendering of popular Hindi film songs by Sourabh Jain, a fashion show and dance num­bers. The hosts for the evening were Sbivendra Kundra, newscaster from India, and former Miss India Worldwides, Gita Bali and Vidya Shekhar. 

The fashion show highlighted the collection of designer Dinesh Cheddha, A bevy of models led by Mehr Bhasin, Rakshanda Khan, Anupama Verma and Nethra Raghuraman showed dozens of ensembles in a spectrum of fabrics and designs. Bleary-eyed members of the audience kept running to the lobby for a caffeine fix. Only hot samosas and chutney were missing. 

The event was very much a community happening with several dance numbers presented by Apra Bhandari, a former Miss India New York; classi­cal dancer Sonalee Vyas and her group; and local young women studying dance at Kalanjali School of Dance and East-West School of Dance. 

Many of these girls do not know how to speak Hindi but are probably more into Indian culture and tradition than the girls in India,” says Saran. 

What came through at the pageant once again was the NRI fixation on Bollywood. In the talent seg­ment., most of the participants danced to popular hits from Taal and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Yet the winner was Miss Hong Kong who presented an ac­complished Bharatanatyam piece. 

Most of these women have set their sights on professions like medicine, public relations and the law. The con­test gave them a chance to take a de­tour and explore their Indian identities through dress and dance. 

Perhaps it also opens up doors to new careers. Melissa Bhagat, last year’s Miss India Worldwide from Canada is now.planning to embark on a career in politics or diplomacy and has justs ap­peared for the Canadian Foreign Ser­vice Competition. She observes: “I think the pageant completely changed my life because it enabled me to go be­yond my own dimensions as an Indo- Canadian and experience the international NR1 community.” 

The contestants from Canada, the US and UAE were all popular but the hot favourite was Aarti Chahria from India. After all, who could be more Indian than Miss India herself? The audi­ence anointed Chabria long before the judges, with a frenzy of clapping and chants of “Miss India”. 

This vibrant17-year-old. from Mumbai scored with her eloquent namaste. ln the western dress segment she wore a concoction of see-through lace pants and top, proving that bharatiya naris are as “with it’’ as any westerner, So while Chabria wore the Miss India Worldwide crown, Sharan Gill from the US and Anupma Anand from Hong Kong were declared first and second runners-up respectively.

 

Chahria may well be headed the Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen way, for she plans to be an actress. But she won’t find the going tough either, having modeled in over 80 commercials since the age of three. Says Chahria: “That 13-year experience has given me the confidence and will power to say, I want to be an actress!’” 

And her feelings on being crowned the most beautiful woman in the Indian diaspora? “It’s mind blowing. I’m just happy I’ve won for my motherland,” she cooed. In fact, “motherland,” “culture” and “India” were the words repeatedly invoked by most con­testants. Clearly, this pageant was also about roots and identity.