Over a year ago, when Sai Sanjana Edara was disallowed to participate in a fashion show on account of a slight technicality at the eleventh hour, she was obviously disappointed. However, that disappointment propelled her to work harder, and here she is, the winner of 'Little Miss Tamizh 2018', a beauty pageant organised by Schools of Success.
She is a resident of R.A. Puram and a Class XI student of Chettinad Vidyashram.
The contest, held recently in Chennai, for over a month had 250 contestants, some of them from Bengaluru.
The contest was divided into auditions, preliminaries 1 and 2 and semifinals.
Apart from photo shoot, contestants were judged on their basis of parameters such as behaviour and confidence level.
“At the contest, besides taking part in a fashion show, I presented a Bharatanatyam performance and also spoke about Indian classical dance and how to promote Tamil culture,” says Sanjana.
Since 2012, she has given over 200 Bharatanatyam performances across India.
In April, she will be going on a whirlwind tour to Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi.
“I have been learning Bharatanatyam from the age of three from Meenakshi Chitharanjan, an Indian classical dancer.”
In 2014, the young dancer received the 'Pandanallur Meenakshi Sundaram Endowment Award' from Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai and a cash award from Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Government of India, for her contribution to classical dance.
"The endowment award is so special to me. I received the award from Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, an Indian classical Bharatanatyam dancer,” she points out.
This year, she will be taking part in a pageant to be held in Greece, and another in Turkey.
Sanjana is also the captain of a sports house — Emerald House — at her school and as a result, in in-charge of sports activities of 700 girl students.
