May 25, 2000	atimes.com

India/Pakistan Blase about assembly-line beauties By Shubhra Gupta NEW DELHI - When the news came in from the picturesque Mediterranean isle of Cyprus about hot Indian contender Lara Dutta winning the Miss Universe crown earlier this month, not too many in India were surprised. Well-groomed Indian teenagers, in the past six years, have made almost a habit of winning international beauty pageants. But as more crowns are added to smartly-coiffured Indian heads, a couple of contradictory things are happening. A sense of deja vu is setting in among India's rich and famous. At the same time, there is an added determination among young people in the urban middle class to acquire the cachet of being beautiful, win a contest, and live happily for the rest of their lives. Beauty is in vogue even with the ruling classes. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee issued the now mandatory congratulations to the ''most beautiful woman in the universe''. Vajpayee's predecessor, like him erudite and scholarly, P V Narasimha Rao did it six years ago when Delhi teenager Sushmita Sen broke into the winners' circle for the first time. Sen's crowning as Miss Universe at the 1994 contest in the Philippine capital Manila sparked off unprecedented frenzy among tabloid and serious media commentators, academics and historians. Most of the commentary had a common thread running through it - the enhancement of national pride. Sen was seen to have done for India's Beautiful People what Indian cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar had done for the sports lovers. Her victory declared that winning was a challenge, but it could be done. And, more important, that it was a worthwhile activity. Responses to Dutta's win, by contrast, have been muted. It has drawn rapturous praise from among her peers and and those who were responsible for creating her - her dress designers, face sculptors, dieticians, speech trainers, and the like. Leading Indian fashion clothes designer Ritu Kumar, whose garments have been a constant factor in the wins, observed: ''I knew Lara would do it. She has the poise and confidence of a winner.'' An internationally known designer, Kumar's creations have adorned some of the foremost celebrities in the West, so her comment was seen as carrying some weight. The small but high profile tribe of Indians in Kumar's profession too have come up with such quotable statements that are ardently sought by the glamor-struck national media, which, ironically, is responsible for creating and shaping these assembly-line beauty queens. In fact, all the beauties who have gone on to win international crowns, have come out of The Femina stable, a leading woman's magazine which is part of The Times of India newspaper group. The Times media group, one of India's oldest, can singlehandedly take credit for the boom in India's beauty industry. It not only discovers new hopefuls every year, but also makes sure that they never leave the public eye through its glossy big city supplements which are devoted solely to designer-dos, designer clothes and beautiful people. As for Dutta, she will make a brief triumphant return home, providing a few nice photo opportunities, and then be off to the West to do what Miss Universes are supposed to do. In another couple of weeks, the media and the fashion industry will move on to a fresh face and figure, which has to be pummelled, poked and re-invented into the next new glamor goddess. There was real excitement when it happened for the first time. When Sen, the daughter of an armed forces officer, and from an ordinary Delhi suburban colony, clapped her hands to her mouth in joyous ecstasy in Manila, the image sizzled off television screens into the staid Indian consciousness, and changed it forever. In a country where beauty has traditionally been put on a pedestal and worshipped from afar but aroused great unease from up close, Sen's victory was an assertion of a new confidence among Indian youth about the body - about having it, and flaunting it. Sushmita and Aishwarya Rai, who won the Miss World title soon after, made the going-after-beauty business respectable in India. The sheen of respectability became the basis for what is now indeed big business. Hole-in-the-wall beauty parlors became salons, and grasping mothers dragging nubile daughters onto the contest stage are seen as being properly ambitious for a ''good career'' for their young ones. Television shows trawling metropolitan India for local beauties became roaringly popular. The biggest social impact they had was to remove the tag of tawdriness from all things related to modelling, and beauty contests. It became cool to enter contests where one had to reel off bodily vital statistics to a row of judges comprising models, designers, film stars. It was not long before the winner was invited to join the judges' row herself. By now, India's beauty industry has turned out two more Miss Worlds - Diana Hayden and Yukta Mookhey. Another supermodel, Madhu Sapre, nearly won, but her jaw was too square, and her accent was not quite the thing. This has made future contestants very careful about these things. Aspiring beauty queens now not only have to get used to eating shredded lettuce at all meal times, but also working on their Ps and Qs. Hundreds of young girls are queuing up for local and national pageants across the country, all with their eye on the big chance. But even if they do not make it, there is much to aim for - lucrative deals from a market hungry for pretty, new faces. There is also fame - rookie reporters seek their opinion on things ranging from politics to the weather. No one cares for a few protesters who brand these contests as a show of ''breast and buttock''. Lara Dutta has been called a combination of ''brains and beauty''. (Inter Press Service)

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