Almost famous in Farrukhabad

Ravina’s phone keeps ringing. But she doesn’t answer it. Her onion-seller husband, calling from Fatehgarh, doesn’t know that she holds a make-up brush at Saraswati Bhawan in Farrukhabad, her maika (parents’ home). He must be silenced for now, as she has more important business to attend to. Her 17-year-old sister Muskaan is about to take the ramp at the grandly christened Farrukhabad Yuva Mahotsav, which also passes off as the “Miss UP contest”. Ravina hoists Muskaan’s green strapless gown from the back to conceal an errant bra strap. Muskaan wriggles, giggles and complains against her sister’s cold hands.

Ravina became a bride at the age of eight, her sister however, is unmarried and has completed her schooling. Ravina’s in-laws don’t approve of this world of ‘showbiz’, but at her maika, she can take a few liberties, and chaperones her sister to this other world. As Muskaan’s finishing touches (there is no such thing as too much lipstick) are completed, her nephew makes a quick escape.

Ravina shrieks, “Ujwal, Ujwal,” and soon enough finds him hiding behind a pillar. Grabbing his six-year-old wrist, she mumbles, “ Naam hai Ujwal, aur kaala badnam hai chehra (his name means light, but his face is an unfortunate black).” Muskaan tweaks his ear. A suited and booted emcee calls her name, she pulls aside the makeshift shamiana flap, yanks up her gown, like an Oscar-hopeful, pulls out her smile and walks onto the ramp.

The official Miss India might have been around for 50 plus years, and after its slew of Miss World and Miss Universe titles in the mid to late ’90s, it might have lost some sheen, but similar events mushroom across India’s maidans and malls, hotels and arenas. At these offshoots, mothers and sisters become make-up artists and choreographers and, for one evening, everygirl becomes a star. Miss India might inspire these events, but the final products are bespoke rather than clones. Each caters to its own audience and participants, and here’s where mimicry morphs into innovation. What these shows might lack in poshness, they substitute with chutzpah, and while finesse might be missing, entertainment is guaranteed.

To track these events, BLink travels to Dehradun to catch Miss Uttarakhand, Farrukhabad, for a so-called Miss UP and sits-in on the audition of Mr and Miss NCR in Delhi. The facilities at these events range from jugaad to professional, the level of talent, from impressive to embarrassing. For some candidates you cheer, ‘You go girl’, for others, you wish to gently lead the way to the door.

The one question that echoes time and again is, why this? What is the magnetism of this world? Few contestants I meet know or understand the world of design, fashion or modelling, instead the lure of Hindi TV shows and Bollywood trumps all else. These wobbly steps on too-high heels are the first attempt at winning recognition, and perhaps, one day even celebrity status. “Famous banna chahti hu (I want to be famous) ,” seems a motto rather than a sentiment. Spoken without rehearsed artifice, it reflects the aspirations of all, where money and television appearances equals fame, and little else matters. Not the cold chewing one’s flesh at an outdoor event on a December night in Dehradun, not the leer of men who push against each other at Farrukhabad, not the sneers of judges who sit on the other side of the table and ask contestants to perform various indignities.

At Saraswati Bhawan, Usha, a mother, stands in the corner and watches her daughter Ambalika sashay down the stage. She whispers to us, “ Yahan , hot pants mana hai . Hum Lucknow se aaye hain. Wahan har show main hot pants hota hain . Hum hot pants le aaye hain, lekhin Ambalika ko short dress pehanna pada (hot pants are not allowed at this show. We have come from Lucknow. There at every show, hot pants are allowed. We are carrying a pair, but Ambalika had to wear a short dress instead).” She quickly adds, “She looks good in hot pants.”

Farrukhabad, four hours from Agra, like UP’s numerous other inchoate cities is precious to its citizens but invisible to the outside world. A Yadav stronghold, it makes headlines only when Salman Khurshid visits or when ‘Russian stars’ (i.e. any fair, voluptuous woman) gyrate at their annual Ramnagaria mela held on the banks of the Ganga. Most famous for its potato production, tourists tend to skip it unless aloo mandis be their passion. When a single white car, with a yellow number plate, passes through, children shriek, “Tourists aaye hai (tourists have come);” thereby announcing the alien invasion.

But at the yuva mahotsav (youth festival), started in 2005, this city of roughly three lakh people, gets to put its best foot forward. Snobs from the capital city Lucknow, might believe that the hot pants embargo confirms its small-town status, nonetheless, they assemble here from across the State.

I soon get talking to Divya Maurya, who is here to support her sister Durga. Divya, the eldest of three sisters, is completing her MA in Education at the PD Mahila Degree College in Fatehgarh. She has the prettiest smile, but is content as a supporter rather than a participant. Daughter of a wholesale vegetable seller, she says that an event like this costs the family close to ₹5,000, as outfits for the three rounds — jeans, short dress and gown — must be bought by them. Her parents allow Durga to participate as they feel Divya will take care of her. Articulate and wise, Divya says, in Hindi, “I am happy to come here and help my sister. But this is a strange world. In the blink of one’s eye, one risks losing one’s self-respect.”

In the midst of tyros, many of whom tug at the hem of their dresses, willing it to lengthen and sheathe their legs, Priyanka stands out. Dressed in a Zara-like white-and-black dress she struts down the stage, hand on hip and a smirk on the face. When she comes backstage, she says, “I am a software engineer from Bangalore. My family is from Etah (100km away), so I decided to participate. When I first saw the crowd, I thought of turning back, but then my mother told me I might as well take part.”

To be generous, one might call the crowd enthusiastic, although rowdy would be the more appropriate descriptive. The organisers do their best to discipline them — they have banned mobile phone photography, they urge the men to remain sitting and not to shove against the stage — and when all else fails, cops are called upon. The use of choice expletives and a quick lathi charge restores order in the maidan.

The Farrukhabad girls overhear Priyanka tut-tutting at their city and remind her, in no uncertain terms, she can leave if she chooses to be disrespectful. Of course, she chooses to stay. If we bump into a software engineer from Bangalore in Farrukhabad, we also meet Sadiq who has travelled from Bangalore at the Mr and Miss NCR auditions held in Delhi. Hailing from Patna, he is now completing a Bachelor’s in dental surgery. Why abandon the safety of a medical profession to try one’s luck in this world? Shaking his fringe away from his eyes, he says, “John Abraham has been my childhood model and hero. My parents’ dream for me was to be a dentist. But now I want to follow my own dream.”

At the Mr and Miss Delhi NCR audition, held in one of the Capital’s plushest hotels, most candidates give a variation of 20-year-old Anshu’s answer, “I want to get into this field so that in another 10 years, every other person will point and say, ‘That is Anshu’.” The judges at the Delhi audition, unlike their Farrukhabad counterparts, need not worry about riot control, but they need to caution against boredom. It doesn’t take long before each set of eight candidates resembles the previous set. Girl in red dress and red lipstick who claims to be a poet; beefcake boy who plays sport for his school; too-puny boy who is as attractive as a clothespin; tongue-tied boy and girl whose vocabulary starts and ends with ‘sorry’; a limited number of tropes is on display. While 1,500 youngsters registered online, 170 have been called for this round of auditions. The judges sort through them with a mix of cruelty and alacrity.

When a boy declares with a touch of pride, “I am lean now, not skinny,” the judges tell him to take off his shirt. He demurs, slowly pops open one button, then another, then stops. “I can show you a photo,” he offers hopefully. But the judges hear none of that. He removes his shirt and stands in his undershirt, acutely aware that his baniyan is not audition-ready. “ Yeh bhi utaro (take this off also),” he is told. He follows instructions. The girls in the group turn away, out of courtesy, I imagine. “Achchi body banayi hai,” a judge says, surveying and summing up the chest on display. This vote of appreciation evaporates the boy’s initial timidity; he puffs all six packs out once more and throws a quick glance at the ladies.

Inside the confines of a hotel one can safely flash the odd naked chest. But in late December when young girls, dressed in white ganjis, shorts and stilettos, walk down an outdoor ramp in the hill station of Dehradun, they require a warrior’s fortitude. The official Miss Uttarakhand falls smack in between the tamasha of a Miss UP and the jadedness of a Miss NCR. Held in a vacant lot near the city’s biggest mall, it combines an urbane aesthetic with local flavour. While the majority of the contestants hail from Dehradun, a few have travelled down from the higher altitudes of Rishikesh, Chamoli and Tehri. Many have studied at convent schools, they speak perfect English, are well-travelled and well-educated. A carefully choreographed and rehearsed show, the girls know the art of parading down the ramp, striking a pose for the cameras and pouting for the audience, arms akimbo.

But when they dart backstage, their teeth chatter, they wrap their arms around themselves, hug each other and quiver. In a desperate bid to keep warm in the five degrees of winter, they dance to Yeh mera dil pyaar ka deewana before the emcee calls their name. As they get ready for the gown round, a choreographer’s voice rings out, “Sonali, do something. Sirf tyres hi tyres dikh rahe hai . (Sonali do something, only your tyres can be seen).” It is too late for Sonali to get a new dress, too late to lose the guilty fat, so she does what she can do — holds her breath, doesn’t breathe, sucks her stomach in and walks into the unforgiving glare of the stage.

The idea of beauty and glamour is to mask the messiness behind, to render inconsequential all the hardships that precede it. People show their best face and never the struggle and pain that throb behind it all. If these men and women get noticed, greater struggles await them. Some have the support of their families, others are willing to defy their parents. A few are ready to give up familiar hometowns and lucrative professions for a chance at fame. They strut and smile, their sore feet, aching back, goosebumps invisible to all. The belief that they might win the crown, that they will be stars, spurs them onto the ramp and into the applause.

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