Word: pageanteers
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When Sushmita Sen, the first Indian to be chosen Miss Universe, made her triumphant return to the subcontinent after the 1994 pageant, there were victory processions, gala parties and countless interviews. For fans like Yukta Mookhey, a teenager growing up in a middle-class suburb of Bombay, Sushmita was living a dream: she had been wrenched from an ordinary life and forged by the blast furnace of glamour and fame into a celebrity. Yukta, then 15, told her family that she too would one day wear a glittering crown. Her parents smiled at her adolescent fantasies, talked about college...
...appeal is obvious. Once noticed, the young women immediately find a place in the world of modeling and acting. Pageant sponsors often offer lucrative endorsement deals. Several beauty queens are now top movie stars in Bollywood...
...expanding list of pageants is spurred and sponsored by cosmetics companies eager to tap into the $1 billion-plus Indian market. The search for Miss Monsoon, for instance, was funded by American Dreams, which sells "fine fragrances from the U.S.A." It is these vendors, say cynics, who have put the spotlight on Indian beauty. With millions of Indians tuning in for live broadcasts of competitions featuring their countrywomen, the pageant scene is an advertiser's dream. "I am not getting paranoid about an international conspiracy, but it obviously helps the cosmetics giants to have India associated with beauty," says novelist...
...pageant reaches its climax, the tuxedoed presenter announces the runners-up. It's clear that Bhandari is the winner. With damp eyes, Miss Monsoon stoops slightly to receive her tiara and begins dreaming of the next pageant...
...London, the Worshipful Company of Grocers rode camels (a reference to their spice-trading origins) past a smiling Queen Mother at a pageant to help celebrate her upcoming birthday with the kind of eccentricity that makes England one of the world's oddest nations. But unlike the G-8, at least the Queen Mum had something to celebrate. She turns 100 in a few days. Bring on the camels...