Miss India: Beauties win over jury with keen intellect

From a ringside seat in her home state on Saturday, former boxing champion Laishram Sarita Devi assessed a women’s contest in which gloves tend to reach the elbow. Barely two weeks after the main stadium of Imphal’s Khuman Lampak Sports Complex saw a team of men from various Indian states run in an international football tournament, its indoor stadium witnessed a sisterhood of sarongclad women from various Indian states sashaying their way down the runway at VLCC & Trends co-present Femina Miss India 2023 hosted by Manipur Tourism co-powered by ORRA Fine Jewellery, makeup partner Colorbar Made forMagic and co-powered by Rajnigandha Pearls on April 15.
For the first time in its 59-year history, the grand finale of Femina Miss India 2023 was held in Manipur.
A row of traditional phanek-and-innaphi-clad dancers parted to make way for the 30 high-heeled state winners who seemed intent on turning up not only the natural beauty but also the current umbrellarequiring temperatures of the hilly North-Eastern state by several degrees on Saturday.

The beauties fielded questions from the jury comprising Femina Miss India Universe 2002 and mentor Neha Dhupia, star choreographer Terence Lewis, film director and writer Harshavardhan Kulkarni and ace designers Rocky Star and Namrata Joshipura, apart from Sarita Devi.

“Just as appreciation comes from home and charity begins at home, change comes from within. With a new you,you can make a bigger impact on the world,” said Nandini Gupta of Rajasthan —a model and business management student—who was crowned Femina Miss India World 2023. Gupta will represent India at the Miss World contest in which the country has so far seen six crowning moments from Reita Faria in 1966 to Manushi Chhillar in 2017.

Shreya Poonja of Delhi— a budding entrepreneur who said she would introduce ‘civic behaviour’ as a new subject in schools as “it could bring a dynamic change and could lead children to become dynamic and responsible citizens”—was crowned Femina Miss India 2023 1st Runner-up while Thounaojam Strela Luwang of Manipur— a model, student and TV anchor who was diagnosed with epilepsy at a young age and who said “failure had taught me to be grounded, stay humble and be nice to everyone”—was crowned Femina Miss India 2023 2nd Runner-up.

Their non-preachy answers seemed to reinforce what Luwang had told a local newspaper before the pageant. “Today, a beauty queen is someone relatable,” Luwang had said. “She doesn’t have to be perfect or look perfect inevery way possible.”

The ceremony opened with a salute to womanhood and gratitude to Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh expressed in style by actor Bhumi Pednekar who co-hosted the event with the reliably-witty Maniesh Paul. “Aina Nangbu Nongshi (Manipuri for ‘I love you’),” Paul declared to the audience before requesting Singh to proclaim him the “state anchor” based on flimsy grounds such as the fact that he shared half his name with Manipur.

If the arrivals of actors Ananya Pandey and Kartik Aaryan set many local phonecameras aflutter outside the elegant hotel that was hosting them, their high-octane performances onstage sent the paparazzi at the venue into a tizzy. Dressed in bubblegum pink, Pandey literally descended onstage during a performance that rendered onstage pyrotechnics redundant.