A pageant in the city for short women hopes to break barriers when it comes to what makes a beauty queen
The pageant contestants during their rehearsal rounds in Lonavla. Pics/Sneha Kharabe
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Growing up in the small town of Aurangabad, Kiran Lokhande was made to believe that not all good things come in small packages. "I am the shortest in the family, but since the age of eight, I have wanted to get into the glamour world and be a model. But they would say, you're too short for this."
"The mentality in a small town is that women cannot move to another city. As clichéd as it sounds, they do believe that a woman's place is in the four corners of the house. So, I never even made an attempt to try my hand at a beauty pageant, because I knew there was no hope of making it," says the 19-year-old.
Ironically, when we meet Lokhande, it's at the press conference of a beauty contest, titled Miss Tiara 2017 at a Thane hall. To be held on January 10 at Ravindranatya Mandir, Prabhadevi, the contest will pick winners from three categories that include Miss Tiara, Miss Teen Tiara and Mrs Tiara, who will later go on to participate in international pageants.
Kiran Lokhande
"When people think of pageants, they get a certain mental image based on what they have seen from watching them on TV and from stories in the news. However, most people don't understand what these pageants are like from the perspective of an insider," says pageant organiser Rushikesh Mirajkar, an actor turned stylist who also imparts ramp walking and grooming lessons to beauty pageant aspirants. "There's no height or colour requirement, but how often do we see a Miss India who is 5 feet two inches tall? This is because the pageant organisation wants to promote a woman that has modelling potential on top of everything else they look for in a winner. It's not impossible for a petite woman to win, though," he says. Seeing the sea of talent in the country, who lose out just because of their height, the 27-year-old decided to launch his own pageant.
In its second outing, the Miss Tiara pageant, which was launched in October last year, has no restrictions when it comes to height, colour or caste. In fact, it calls upon women, anywhere between the height of 5.1 feet to 5.5, or even taller to be part of it.
No tall claim
All of 5'2'', Lokhande is participating in the teen category and has made the cut from the 200-odd women who had auditioned for the pageant. Dressed in a shimmery green sari with her poker straight hair falling over her shoulders, Lokhande waltzes into the room. "I found out about the pageant through a friend last May, so I went for the audition. I was visibly nervous because I saw many other girls who were taller and more glamorous than I was," she says. Lokhande was no stranger to discrimination. Over a year ago, when she applied for the Princess of Thane pageant, she was rejected outright. "I had seen the newspaper ad. They did not even allow me to audition because of my height," she says. Seeing her dejected face, a judge from the panel let her enter the first round. She never made it past the first round. "But, I didn't lose hope which is why I applied at Miss Tiara when I learnt of it from a friend," she says. Today, she's one of the seven contestants to participate in the Miss Teen category.
Rushikesh Mirajkar
Like Lokhande, there are about 25 women who have assembled at the venue, a motley bunch who have come from all over the country, including Raigad, Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh.
Not all fit into the conventional image of a model - skinny and tall. Take Rashmeen Bharde, for instance, the voluptuous 20-year-old from Navi Mumbai. About 5.2 feet, Bharde is a zumba trainer, who nurtured dreams of modelling from her early teenage years. "Although my family was supportive of my desire to be a model, there was a never platform for it," she says.
While Miss Tiara is a non-profit initiative, Mirajkar says the participants had to shell out Rs 4,500 as fee. "We imparted them with all skill sets that help in the development of your overall personality. We had trainers from various fields like dance, theatre, acting, etc. to groom them," he says. The girls, he adds, were a challenge that he wanted to take up. "Because I have been part of the industry, I have seen how the right training can make personalities blossom. Many, like Lokhande, were extremely shy at the start. We had to counsel them, make them come out of the shell. Rashmeen even cried because she was too scared to give a PowerPoint presentation. I wanted to make them more confident and show them that height and colour are superficial," he says. Mirajkar proudly introduces us to the winners of last year's pageant winners who went on to bag glories at international platforms where height is not a constraint. Take for instance, Miss Heritage International. Formerly known as Miss Heritage World it's an international beauty pageant that stands for advancing World Heritage. The pageant was founded in Zimbabwe by Tare Munzara in 2012.
When we see the girls prancing in 4-5 inch high heels, we wonder if it beats the purpose of the pageant. "It's certainly not to make them appear taller. High heels are essential for a perfect catwalk. The idea is to work your personality into your strut," says Mirajkar, a Thane resident.
Whether it leads to a modelling/acting career or other pageant wins, the takeway for these aspiring winners is confidence and the belief that every kind of woman, can be a beauty queen.
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