On a vacation on the foothills of Himalayas, Rita Gangwani came upon an advertisement splashed on the window of a hotel for a model hunt. Those were the early 1980s when designer fashion was yet to hit most Indians. Her diminutive figure did not come in the way of impressing the judges and walking away as winner in the competition. She worked in the Army for five years before becoming a mentor of models in order to conquer their dreams in beauty pageants in both India and abroad.
Today, Rita has become a role model for aspiring pageants. Giving grooming tips in metros is not enough and now on her radar are girls living in remote regions. To show them the roadmap on how to fulfil their dream, she has now penned a book “The Beauty Pageant’s Greenroom”. Its foreword has been written by Sushmita Sen whose journey, as we know, has been an inspiration.
“During summer of 1982 I had gone to Shimla as a tourist and came across this pageant. And I decided to make the most of this opportunity. Those days pageants were judged by their intelligence quotient, the way participants conversed and their knowledge about the world around them. My height did not come in the way. Being four feet ten inch, I was pitted against two tall imposing girls yet when the results were declared I was proclaimed Himachal Queen,” says Rita, while recounting the experience of her first brush with modelling.
From modelling in 1980s till now modelling has seen a huge change and known names like Jesse Randhawa, Noyonika Chatterjee and Jesse Randhawa even dwarf some Bollywood hunks.
“The benchmark for height was set by Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai when they won Miss Universe and Miss World respectively. I cannot answer the genetic reason behind this sudden increase in height as far as Indian girls are concerned but the truth is that now our girls do match the international standard of five feet eight inches of height.”
While Sushmita and Aishwarya made the nation proud, there is still no formula to crack beauty pageants. After Priyanka Chopra, none of the Miss Indias has been able ot make a mark on the global stage.
“Many models come for the auditions without knowing what is in store of them. As they are not clear in their head they end up losing a great deal of money. So I am offering these models a complete guideline on how to handle their career at various stages. Right from filling up the form to winning the tiara everything has been explained. Every requirement needs to be fulfilled at the highest level. So the book is all about improving their personality, polishing social etiquette, being articulate, perfecting their dressing style and projecting an image that makes them stands out.”
The book is also targeted towards prospective models from non-urban areas. “Most of the girls who come into the finale of beauty pageants are from the Armed Forces background . So they have advantage of speaking fluent English, knowing table etiquettes and mannerisms. Therefore, I am addressing girls from the interiors of Haryana from where we are now getting aspiring beauty queens. Monika Swami, who comes from the State, recently walked at India Runway Fashion Week and Gurgaon Fashion Week. Then we have girls from villages of North East States like Meghalaya. Sometimes, making them thorough with English is not possible so I teach them 100 small yet efficacious sentences. In order to fill in the gap, I take these girls to restaurants and teach them how to handle forks and knives,” says Rita, who is witnessing a sudden increase in prospective models from rural areas as well as urban girls from low income groups.”
Institutes with grooming experts have mushroomed in various cities offering a solution to wannabe models. “We have institutes who help girls to walk on the ramp, apply make-up but there is no institute which gives them comprehensive course on grooming. Even after a contestant is declared as a winner still there is a question mark on what she would do next. Some go for films, others head for serials. But, sometimes, they do not understand elementary things like how to fulfil the cause they have taken up. All these things are covered in this book.”
