COVER STORY

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

Sarmishta Ramesh explores the world of Indian American beauty pageants to find out what motivates these young, talented and ambitious sirens to covet the crown and what goes on behind the making of these glamorous events.

On a particularly windy afternoon, 23 bikini-clad young Indian American women crowd into a large room at the Hilton Hotel in Newark, California. They have flown in from different parts of the United States, and some even from different countries, to be part of what is being touted as the first global beauty pageant just for NRIs. Their pencil-thin stiletto heels wobble as they stand in line. Some strike a pose with a hand on their hips. Others lounge casually against the wall. A little bit of chitchat fills the room as they while away the time waiting for the choreographer to arrive. With barely 24 hours left for the beauty pageant, this would be their last chance to get their moves right for the swimsuit session.

Walking down the ramp in a swimsuit – and a two-piece at that – is not a typical desi thing and the apprehension is palpable in the room. But the wait seems endless. Some fidget. Some with a sarong around their hips try to adjust the flimsy bit of clothing and smile vaguely at each other. Just then a young man in his twenties canters into the room. His stylish swagger screams choreographer. This will be the man who will teach the girls to walk the walk with a “Wah, wah.”

“Girls, it’s time to show what we got. So let’s get rockin,” he shouts. From the far corner of the room a portable music system begins to play a snazzy tune. The first girl begins to walk across the room. Jasmine Harchandani, 23, adds an extra bounce to her step. Hips sway seductively. But her huge plastic smile falters as she approaches the end of the room where she needs to turn. “Keep going.” “Don’t let that smile slip.” “Be confident.” The small crowd gathered cheers her on. One…two…three…four. Turn! Harchandani turns successfully, bouncing her hair in the process. “Good job,” applauds the choreographer. And now another girl steps up in front and the swishing and swaying begins all over again.

“Whew! I’m happy I’m done. That was nerve racking. I’ve never worn a swimsuit before,” whispers Harchandani. For this San Francisco-based fashion designer, who will participate in the “Mrs.” section of the “NRI Global Pageant,” the contest will be a first. “I joined this to promote my new line of clothing during the talent segment of the show,” she adds.

Just then Tanuja Choksey steps up to the plate. This 24-year-old Kenyan Indian has just won the Miss India Global-Kenya title and proudly wears the flashy sash across her body. There is an undeniable sassiness to her step. She blows kisses to the small audience and laughs with pleasure as catcalls and whistles fill the room. “Oh! This is fantastic. I totally enjoy this. The best part was when I was leaving Kenya, a few reporters followed me at the airport and took pictures. It was fabulous,” trills this petite expat.

Eclectic Pageants

This, in a nutshell, is the essence of Indian American beauty pageants: A platform for every desi dreamer to dream big. Ever since the first pageant was started in the ‘70s in New York as part of an Indian cultural show under the banner of the India Festival Committee, these home-grown productions have gained glitz and glamour over the years, and morphed into serious launching pads for relative newcomers to catch the eye of the entertainment industry both here in the U.S. and in Bollywood. Case in point is Richa Sharma, the first Miss India New York-1980, who was noticed by Bollywood actor-director Dev Anand. She starred in his blockbuster-hit movie, “Hum Naujawan,” and eventually became a career actress in Bollywood (she later married Sunjay Dutt).

Since then, Indian American beauty pageants have mushroomed, but at the same time have become more structured and organized. Today, practically every state in America has a “Miss or Mr. India” pageant. Some have a bonus “Mrs.” section. The winners of these local shows go on to compete at the national and world levels. “The opportunities for the winners are endless,” points out New York-based Dharmatma Saran, the godfather of Indian American beauty competitions.

And to the most ambitious of the lot, Bollywood beckons the brightest. After Richa Sharma, there has been a steady migration of Indian American beauties to the filum industry. Take, for example, Ruby Bhatia, Kamal Sidhu and more recently Aarti Chabria, who have taken the Indian television and movie world by storm. “Most of these girls are very well educated,” points out Saran. Apra Bhandari, who won the Miss India New York title in 1998, has a degree in communications from Cornell University. “I once had a heart surgeon from Johns Hopkins University competing in my pageant,” adds Saran.

But Bollywood is only a part of the story. Most of the participants at these pageants are young men and women who join the shows often on a whim with no glamorous ambitions in mind. “Only 25 to 30 percent of the girls who compete in beauty pageants dream of entering Bollywood. For others it’s a whole variety of reasons and they go on to become lawyers, doctors, engineers or even join the entertainment industry,” he adds.

The Pioneers

Reshma Dordi is perhaps one of the most recognized faces in the Indian American entertainment business. She is today the executive producer of “Showbiz India,” a weekly television production based in Los Angeles that airs across the United States featuring songs and news from Bollywood. But her journey into the entertainment industry began in 1988 when she won the Miss L.A. India title. “I was then a 17-year-old gawky, insecure teenager. Our family had just moved from Seattle to LA. My brother suggested that I join the ‘Miss LA India’ pageant that was coming up, so I could meet other Indian girls. I did not have any major plan then. So I did,” remembers Dordi.

But winning the title set Dordi on a path she has not strayed from in all these years. With the $2,000 scholarship money she won, Dordi started “Palken Radio,” which to date is a popular Indian airwave in the Los Angeles area. “I used the money to buy movie song cassettes to play on my show,” she explains. That was perhaps the defining moment of her career. Since then Dordi has worked with CNN, hosted the 1995 “Femina Miss India” pageant that launched Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen, and in 1998 launched “Showbiz India.”

“Getting on that stage 17 years ago enhanced me as a person. It gave me the confidence to stand in front of an audience and talk. I think beauty pageants are wonderful platforms for young women to build character,” says Dordi, who in 1990 founded the “Miss Southern California Beauty Pageant,” which rewards South Asian students achieving academic excellence through the “Pearl Entertainment Scholarship Fund.”

“There have been many girls here in the U.S. who have won pageant titles. But it depends on the individual on how they choose to use that title,” points out Chandra Mundhra, who organized the first Indian beauty pageant in Los Angeles, the “Miss LA India” contest, and is married to acclaimed film director Jagmohan Mundhra. “Some of my winners have taken the opportunity and done extremely well, while others haven’t,” she adds.

One of winners from Mundhra’s show is Bela Bajaria, who won the Miss LA India and later Miss India USA crowns in 1991. “I took the title very seriously,” recalls Bajaria. “I used my platform to talk about issues that really concerned me,” she adds. Right after her winning streak, Bajaria ran a very successful chapter of a non-profit agency for disabled children in India.

“How much you can achieve depends solely on you. I took every opportunity that came my way. I was not interested in becoming an actress or going to Bollywood. But I was predisposed to the entertainment industry.” Today Bajaria is the senior VP of movies and mini-series at CBS. Bajaria points out that joining the pageant was a personally enriching experience for her. “I made some wonderful friends. In fact, my best friend today is someone I met during the show. We are still in touch with each other and are godmothers to each other’s children.”

The Beginning

So how did Indian pageants take root? At a time when interest in these shows is universally waning and often met with derision, how do the desi versions manage to survive? Ask any pageant organizer, and he or she will tell you that they are not yet moneymaking ventures.

“During one of the shows I lost close to $30,000 of my personal funds. It is because there is not enough corporate sponsorship for these events,” laments Amar Walia, who has hosted a few pageants in the San Francisco Bay Area. “I was able to survive because I have another business to sustain my family. I heard another organizer lost $300,000 during an event. This is not a business where you can easily make money, especially if it is your first time. You can consider yourself lucky if you break even.”

For most of them, hosting such events is all about passion. “To me it is a way of promoting our culture and our values, while at the same time giving our young women an opportunity to succeed,” says Saran.

The very first Indian American pageant happened quite by accident. The year was 1974. Dharmatma Saran was putting together an Indian cultural show at Central Park in New York. “We had a little segment where we had a few young women come out in saris and we modeled it along the lines of a fashion show. The response to this was so overwhelming that we decided to start a beauty pageant,” explains Saran. In 1980, Saran launched the first official “Miss India New York” contest. Since then his company “Worldwide Pageants” has taken the concept across continents to the Indian Diaspora. His Miss India USA and Miss India Worldwide are franchised events and attracts participants from all corners of the globe.

“Initially, I remember it was difficult to break even. But now most of my big events are franchised so that makes it easier for me,” says Saran.

The Sensitivities

Almost all the Indian American pageants stick a “culture” tagline to the events. And swimsuits are a definite no-no. The argument is, why invoke the wrath of the conservative audience that often comes to watch these shows? So it came as quite a surprise when the iNRI pageant decided defy this trend.

Rennu Dhillon, iNRI’s founder, is perhaps one of the most outspoken social activists in the Bay Area. She has been hosting the San Francisco segment of the pageant for more than ten years. “To me, these shows are all about empowering women. We are living in a time where there is emphasis on physical fitness all around us. So what is wrong with young women who are professionals in other areas, showing off that they are fit? Why should we always drape ourselves in layers and layers of sari?” she counters.

While some of her contestants were not fully comfortable wearing a two-piece swimsuit, it did not stop them from getting up on stage. Shilpa Gajjar was a 40-year-old contestant from Jackson, Mississippi. “After practicing with the rest of the girls, I am comfortable now. In fact, I feel really young in this swimsuit,” adds this mom of a teenage daughter with a laugh.

Another successful pageant organizer is Jinder Chohan. Chohan, who has been putting together these shows since her college days, is also perhaps the youngest Indian pageant organizer in the U.S. “These days, probably because of the influence of Aishwarya Rai, there is huge demand for Indian faces in American media. And some of my winners have gone on to do well in network serials,” she points out. Krish Iyer, who won Chohan’s “Mr. India California” pageant in 1992, can be seen in guest roles in hit productions like “ER” and “24.”

Touch of Class

Many organizers try to infuse a touch of class to the events by bringing in hot celebrities as guests and judges. “This year I had Ashok Amritraj, Deepak Nayar, Saira Mohan and Anand Jon as celebrity guests,” says Chohan. And to add more pizzazz to the show, she included a free mentoring session with hotshot celebrity director Gurinder Chadha. All this apart from the usual cash prizes and air tickets that come with winning the title.

Most of the desi pageants have an evening gown and sari segment where the participants parade down the stage. There is often a talent segment, too, where they have the flexibility to present a side of them that is most likely to wow the judges and, like any other global pageant, there is a Q&A session. This is where the girls are quizzed on just about anything.

Pageant banners often announce that physical appearance is only part of the show. Most of the winning or losing happens in the interactive segment. Invariably, this leads to controversies and desi shows have not remained untouched.

“I remember when I won, people said the same. It’s just because my family is pretty active socially in LA, people said, that I had won,” Bajaria recalls. “But I know I worked hard and my family had nothing to do with it. In every pageant, there are always people who lose and it is usually the story of the fox and the sour grape,” she adds with a wry smile.

But to avoid the rigging allegations, more and more pageant organizers are opting for transparency. Dhillon’s NRI pageant was one of the first shows to have live scoring where the numbers would come up on the screen as soon as the judges entered them on their laptops.

But putting together a pageant is no easy task. “It consumes your life,” says Mundhra. Mundhra ran her Los Angeles pageant for 10 years and then decided to take a break. “I found that I was spending months just selecting the girls, organizing the event and following up on all the details for the show,” she adds.

“It took me 18 months to put together the show,” says Dhillon. “I had to talk to pageant organizers in different countries to get the girls to fly here to California. And the past few months, I have just been breathing and sleeping the pageant.”

Meanwhile, back at the Hilton in Newark, it was time for the girls to change their swimsuits and try out their evening gowns that were sponsored by a local retail outlet. And this is where bickering between the contestants often bloom. A catfight starts over a sequined turquoise gown. Both women claim to have selected it first and soon, all hell breaks loose. Eventually even the water works are turned on. “I need to sort this out,” says Dhillon, rolling her eyes, as she rushes to soothe hurt egos.

“Some girls are as easy as one, two, three. While there are a few for whom the color is never right or the straps should have been strapless, there is nothing you can do but work patiently with them,” murmurs Priti Patel, standing aside and watching the estrogen-loaded drama unfold. Patel is a fashion designer who was showcasing her garments at the pageant.

Despite having to referee such ego clashes, give up on any semblance of their personal lives just before the shows, and barely make any money to call a profit, pageant organizers seem to come back for more and more of the same.

“To me, it’s always a pleasure to hear the girls and their parents come back to us and say that it was an enriching experience for them. That’s priceless,” says Dhillon.