Dubai: Mangalorean Girl Reanne Rodrigues Enters Miss India Beauty Pageant
Pictures and Input: Xpress Dubai
Dubai, Nov 15: Three gorgeous girls from Dubai are out to make history as the first official entry of Dubai to India’s biggest beauty pageant Femina Miss India (FMI).
Dubai-based Emirates Vision in conjunction with India Times, handlers of FMI, recently held auditions to select two Indian girls living in the UAE for a direct entry to the main contest in India. So impressed were the judges by the quality of participants that they decided to pick four contestants instead, three from Dubai and one from Muscat.
From singing/writing original songs to being a gifted ballerina and adopting a child, between the three of them they have done things one would rarely associate with girls barely out of their teens. Not only painfully attractive, these girls are sharp, switched on and, for their age, mighty sure of what they want and how to get it. Entries Dubai could be unabashedly proud of.
Reanne, Aaksnksha and Jenai from Dubai
The three girls will now receive a 10 to 15-day long training session in December in the run up to the regional round due to take place in the first week of February 2008 in Mumbai.
While the exact dates of the training schedule are yet to be decided, the programme, organised by Emirates Vision, will encompass such areas as personality development, public speaking skills, body toning, skin and hair care, and presentation skills.
Regional selection in Mumbai will elect at least one girl from every region, although depending on merit there could be more. The selected girls will then be going through another round of winnowing. The survivors will then undergo an extensive Final Training Programme orgainsed by Femina Miss India in mid-March.
The training programme is followed by the selection of finalists who will go through a session of rehearsals to prepare them for the yet undated main event in April 2008.
REANNE RODRIGUES, 22, Fresh out of school
Mangalore
Parents: Remy and Anabel Rodrigues, Urwa (Now in Dubai)
Previous participations: Teen Queen Middle East, Miss India UAE, a few community events, TeleLife, and May Queen at my University in Toronto.
What got you into it?
The prospects are much bigger than any other contests I have taken part in. If you win this one, you go international, so all my previous experience has been a preparation for this one.
What is the toughest part of the preparation for FMI?
A lot of rigorous training is on the cards. It is hard to pick the toughest part. It is a personality competition, so discovering your true self, finding individuality, would be the toughest part because it comes from within.
Hobbies?
Ballet has always been my real passion. I also like modelling, surfing the net, reading and shopping.
Role models?
I have two. The first is definitely the timeless Audrey Hepburn. She was a ballerina and her beauty is enduring. Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen is another person I look up to.
What will you do if you win?
If I win then the first priority would be to focus all my energies on getting the Miss World crown back to India. We haven’t had it for a while now.
What are your long term goals? Is Bollywood on your radar?
I won’t rule out any possibilities. Anything can happen, so if Bollwyood comes my way it will be considered. I’m a trained ballet dancer and I love dancing, hence I would be more interested in choreography, but I have been into dramatics too and acting is not an unfamiliar field.
If the judges asked you about the one thing you wished you you could change in the world and why...
The stress on tolerance. I would replace that emotion with acceptance. There is a degree of resistance in tolerance, but ready acceptance will really do away with a lot of the world’s problems.
PAST WINNERS
Reita Faria, a young medical student from Mumbai, was the first Indian woman to win the Miss World crown in 1966. Since then, an array of Indian beauties have won international beauty pageants.
And The Winners Are…
Aishwarya Rai - Miss World 1994
Sushmita Sen Miss Universe 1994
Diana Hayden: Miss World 1997
Yukta Mookhey: Miss World 1999
Lara Dutta: Miss Universe 2000
Priyanka Chopra: Miss World 2000
Diya Mirza: Miss Asia-Pacific 2000
Amruta Patki: Miss Earth - Air 2006
Femina Miss India
Femina Miss India is an annual national beauty pageant held in India and organised by Femina, a women’s magazine published by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, a media group that owns The Times of India newspaper and Filmfare magazine.
The competition began in 1964 and the same year gained the local licence to the international Miss Universe competition. Towards the end of the 1960s it picked up licences to both Miss World and the Miss Asia-Pacific Quest. In the early 1990s, it finally picked up the licence to Miss International. Femina Miss India has been held annually, except for 1989.