I want to be able to plan my life, so it would be great to know if I’m going to be part of the pageant. Impatience and impudence clearly went hand in hand in me.
After a few interminable hours, he texted back: Have you not received a letter?
And sure enough, official notification arrived the next day. I’d made the cut. I was to travel to Mumbai for a month of pageant preparation and training.
Fortunately, some important preliminary planning had already taken place. In New Delhi, Mom and I had stayed with my father’s older brother, Brigadier Vijay Chopra, and his wife, Dr. Savita Chopra. In Indian culture, elders have traditionally been given a strong voice in a family’s decision-making process. Parents will generally have the final say in decisions regarding their children—not always, as the balance of authority varies from family to family and generation to generation—but the opinions of older siblings and parents matter. Sometimes that’s a blessing; sometimes it’s a curse. My father was one of six children, four boys and two girls, and my dad and his older brother, or Badepapa, always had a say in their siblings’ lives. While we’d been in New Delhi, the family was divided between whether I should go to Mumbai or continue my schooling if I made it to the next round. While at first Badepapa didn’t want me going, after considering the reasoning of his wife, Badimama, he came to see the pageant as an opportunity for me. And so it was agreed that if I made it into the next round I could go to Mumbai, but not alone: no matter what, either Mom or Dad needed to be with me there. Since both of my parents had medical practices at the hospital that they jointly ran, they knew that whoever didn’t accompany me would be covering two practices. Nani was there to help with Sid, but no matter how you looked at it, there would be a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the parent who remained home. Eventually it was decided that it would be Mom who would go with me, since we had traveled the pageant journey together so far, and Dad who’d stay behind. It would only be for four weeks, after all.
With that decision already made, once we knew I was moving on in the pageant, Mom quickly arranged for us to stay with her cousin Neelam Verma. Neelam Masi and her husband, Manoj, lived in the suburbs of Mumbai in a town called Kandivali, almost two hours from Juhu—an hour-and-a-half train ride to Vile Parle followed by a twenty-minute rickshaw trip—where most of the Miss India training would start each day at seven in the morning. Neelam Masi’s offer to take us in was incredibly generous, since she and her husband had two small children, Soumaya and Chinmay, and lived in a two-bedroom apartment. Mom and I slept in the children’s bedroom, and Manoj Mausa and Neelam Masi took the kids into their bed, where all four of them slept together. Each night, Neelam Masi made dinner for all of us and the next day’s lunch for Mom and me. The next morning she rose at 4 a.m. to pack up our provisions before we headed into Juhu, and before she prepared for her day of tutoring local students and looking after her children.
My mother’s cousin, God rest her soul, did not need to do this for me, and us. Whenever I’ve needed something, members of my extended family have always stepped in to provide it. I’ve seen their love and generosity in action my whole life: from my youngest days when I lived with Nana, Nani, and Kiran Masi, to my years living with Kiran Masi and Vimal Mamu in the U.S., to my cousin Sunny moving to Bareilly for months to give me extra help with science and math. Now Manoj Mausa and Neelam Masi were doing it again: giving me the chance to chase this crazy and unexpected dream.
* * *
THE ACTUAL MISS INDIA competition was held on January 15, 2000, at the Poona Club in Pune. Every year there are three winners of the pageant, and each goes on to represent our country in a different international contest. The first winner is crowned Miss India Universe and goes on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant; the second winner is crowned Miss India World and goes on to compete in the Miss World pageant; for many years, including the year 2000, the third winner was crowned Miss India Asia Pacific and went on to compete in the Miss Asia Pacific pageant. The third winner now goes on to compete in the Miss International pageant.
The year 2000 was the millennium year, and there was an especially good panel of judges: Pradeep Guha, of course, whom we all called PG by that point; media baron Subhash Chandra; legendary actor Waheeda Rehman; fashion designer Carolina Herrera; Marcus Swarovski of Swarovski crystals; cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin; painter Anjolie Ela Menon; and several others. During the competition, there were smaller pre-competitions, like Miss Perfect 10, Miss Congeniality, Swimsuit, and Talent. I didn’t win any of them.
As the day wore on, I became convinced that compared with the other girls, especially the ones I expected to win—any combination of Lara Dutta, Dia Mirza, Waluscha De Sousa, and Lakshmi Rana, all gorgeous, compassionate, eloquent contestants and everything a Miss India should be—I fell far short. Lara in particular stood out. She’d already won another pageant and had started a modeling career. Not only was she one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen but she carried herself with grace and composure, and everything she wore was perfect in my eyes.
During the full month of training, in all the yoga classes and gym workouts, at all the cocktail parties and dinners, I never considered myself among the most beautiful girls or in any way a perfect candidate. Not by far. I’d known the whole time that the one thing I wore best was my confidence—as long as I wasn’t comparing myself with the other girls, which I sometimes struggled not to do. I could speak in front of people; I could strike up conversations with strangers; whatever I did, I almost always did with conviction, even when I was bad at it. But that night as the competition wore on, I felt my limitations especially intensely. I knew I was a long shot. It’s not that I was lacking confidence in myself, exactly. I felt I was being realistic.
Somehow I made it into the final round, the round of five. Mine had been the last name called, which had meant a nerve-racking several minutes. And now I stood onstage with the other four finalists—Lara, Dia, Lakshmi, and Gayatri Jayaraman—under the gaze of the millions of Indians watching the pageant on live television. I’d made peace with the fact that I was not going to be one of the winners. Despite having no modeling or pageant experience, I was still in the top five of the Miss India competition. It was an incredible achievement, I told myself. One I could be proud of. This was what was going through my head when my name was called announcing that I had been crowned Miss India World.
Wait, what? I was in shock. My parents were in shock. None of us had a clue what to do next, because we hadn’t planned that far ahead. We’d assumed there was no need to. Our heads were spinning that night and they continued to spin in the days to come. I was seventeen. My parents had to quickly start making plans for a career path we knew nothing about and had no experience or connections in. We were a medical family; we had no idea how to tackle entertainment. I smile as I write that now.
That evening, Lara Dutta was crowned Miss India Universe and Dia Mirza was crowned Miss India Asia Pacific. All three of us would go on to win our international pageants that year, the only time it has ever happened in India’s history.
So yes, Queen Bey. You’re always right.
Who run the world?
Girls.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HENRY IV, PART 2
I HAD TO KEEP pinching myself. I’d actually been crowned Miss India World! Less than two months earlier I’d been studying overtime, getting tutored in chemistry, physics, and math, and generally stressing out over my academic future. I’d kept my eyes on the prize of Passing the Boards with little awareness of anything beyond that. Now I was to be living in Mumbai for the next ten months fulfilling my Miss India commitments, and then representing my country on an international stage in the Miss World pageant. It was a lot to wrap my mind around.
While my family had planned in advance for how we’d handle the logistics of spending a month in Mumbai i
n the unlikely event that I made it beyond the preliminary competition in New Delhi, no plans had been made beyond that. Why put any energy into it? There was no chance that I’d win! But now that I had, my family had to kick it into gear instantly, as my Miss India commitments would begin immediately. I was seventeen, so Mom and Dad divided up the tasks of their lives and mine and worked the equation. As usual, they approached the whole thing as if it were a giant mathematical logic problem.
The first and most pressing problem was to find me a safe place to stay in Mumbai. Once that was accomplished, Mom would temporarily return to Bareilly. My father had taken over most of her patients for the month we’d already been in Mumbai, but that was always understood to be a short-term arrangement. The new plan needed to be something everyone could live with for the long haul, as I would be in Mumbai until November, when I would go to London for the Miss World competition. That meant I’d be away for almost a year, and Mom would be with me for months at a time. Among other things, my parents would have to hire a new doctor to assume my mother’s duties at their hospital. Thank goodness Nani still lived with us so she could take care of Sid, who was eleven. What would we have done without her as a steady presence in our household for more than a decade, helping raise us, supervising homework, helping to shape the adults we would grow into?
Mom quickly found accommodations for me—a single room in the Santacruz neighborhood of the city. I was supposed to have the room to myself, but then a girl named Tamanna Sharma arrived and she was supposed to have the room to herself. When we figured out that the landlord had lied to both of us so that he could get double the rent, we foiled his evil plan by sharing the room and splitting the rent between us. There was one bed, one closet, two shelves, a little dressing table, and a window. That’s it. But we made it work, and Tamanna and I became best friends. Eighteen years later, she would be the maid of honor at my wedding.
In spite of all my travels, I was still only seventeen, and I’d almost always had some kind of adult supervision. When I was in school, my teachers and principal were responsible for me. When I was at home, family members were responsible for me. In both places, there were rules to follow and people to be accountable to at different points during the day. Once Mom returned to Bareilly, all that changed, and, well, you can guess what this boundary-pushing teenage girl did.
Here I was in Mumbai, one of the most populous cities in the world, and the energy of the never-sleeping metropolis was calling out to me. I was practically giddy to be living in a place with so much vitality, excitement, and nightlife. Various family members had done their best to rein me in over the past few years, and I was ready to make up for lost time, going through a crazy phase with Tamanna where we partied several nights a week. Tamanna was working as a flight attendant for Sahara Airlines then, and all her flights were short daytime hops. If I didn’t have any responsibilities on a given day, I might stay in bed until after noon. When Tamanna got back from work, she and I would figure out which party we were going to that night and spend hours getting ready. There were always fashion industry parties that were eager to have the presence of the new Miss India, and boy, did we take advantage of that. We’d leave the apartment at around 10 p.m., ready to take on the world in our tiny skirts and extremely high heels—not the safest thing to do, even though Mumbai is generally a safe city. To make things even riskier, we didn’t have a car, which meant that we arrived at every party assuming we’d meet someone we knew who would be able to drop us back home. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’d been gifted a Daewoo Matiz after winning Miss India, but neither Tamanna nor I knew how to drive, so for the longest time it just sat on the street. Finally we figured out that we could hire a driver to get us to and from parties safely. The three of us made quite a sight zipping around late-night Mumbai in the tiny Matiz: our massive driver took up most of the front of the car—it was two sizes too small for him—as Tamanna and I squeezed together in the back. Freedom was a whole new concept to me, something I clearly hadn’t yet learned how to handle. Somehow, we made it through unscathed and came out the other side armed with a ton of stories. We made a best-friends pact never to share them, ever, except maybe with our kids someday.
These months while Mom was gone, I wasn’t only partying. In my Miss India capacity, I appeared at inaugurations and charity events, visited schools, and met heads of local government. I was also free to work, so I was able to model and get runway experience in fashion shows, as well as do cover and editorial shoots for magazines.
When Mom returned to Mumbai after a few months of taking care of business in Bareilly, I happily gave up the late-night revelry. I’d gotten it out of my system—permanently, it seems. I moved with her into accommodations arranged by Badepapa, and Tamanna moved to a rented apartment of her own. We saw each other occasionally, but now I had to sharpen my focus on the task at hand: training for the Miss World competition.
Training for this international competition was far more advanced and intense than the training for the Miss India competition had been. There were about thirty girls competing for the Miss India title, and we’d received a month of group training, with classes and demonstrations. All of that had been valuable to me and I’d eagerly soaked it up. This training was to be one-on-one, though, and was preparing me to compete against ninety-four contestants from around the globe. One of the many professionals I trained with was Sabira Merchant, a world-class public-speaking and diction coach. She was responsible in large part for my polished presentation skills, having taught me how to formulate my thoughts and articulate them in complete sentences on the spot and under pressure. She trained me to pause and think, foregoing unconscious stalling mechanisms like “um,” “uh,” and “well” so that my speech was clear, direct, and unself-conscious. In the process of all this, she helped rid me of my nasal twang, which she said made me come across as a “Yankee-sounding person,” and worked relentlessly with me on enunciating my vowels and speaking with a global English accent, which meant no more rolling of my r’s. I worked hard and faithfully and still use some of the skills she taught me today.
I got plenty of exercise preparing for the talent round through my training with Shiamak Davar’s dance troupe, members of which helped train me for the Bollywood-meets-contemporary-Indian-dance piece I’d decided to perform. Then there was the gym, Talwalkars, where I showed up reliably each morning. I could have skipped it, but I didn’t want to be considered a slacker. In this one regard, though, I kind of was: I’d show up there and sign in, then go outside to the juice counter and talk to friends. I didn’t have an athletic body, but I was slender and blessed with a metabolism that kept me that way. #NowYouKnow.
Dr. Jamuna Pai, a well-known dermatologist, taught me about skin care. I consulted with Dr. Anjali Mukerjee, a dietician who advised me on healthy eating and sent me to London with a supply of nourishing snacks. I saw Dr. Sandesh Mayekar, a cosmetic dentist who made sure my smile sparkled; I still see him today. The husband-and-wife hair and makeup team of Bharat and Doris worked with me to make sure I knew how to look my best at all times.
Perhaps the most fun part of the prep was meeting with top fashion designers who consulted with me on what to wear and how to wear it. Since I’d always loved making a statement with my clothing, I relished these sessions. I ended up wearing a lot of Ritu Kumar’s designs during the month that the Miss World contestants spent in London before the pageant itself. On the final night of the televised show, I wore a gorgeous soft peach strapless gown custom designed by Hemant Trivedi. There was one slight challenge with it, though, that only became apparent on the actual night of the pageant. More on that later.
Lara, Dia, and I were responsible only for our accommodations and travel while we were training; the Miss India pageant organization generously took care of everything else, and I will be forever grateful for everything I learned in my months of prep. We were trained and groomed until we were the absolute
best versions of ourselves that we could possibly be. We knew we weren’t in our pageants as mere individuals at this point. We all felt both the responsibility and the honor of representing India in the eyes of the world.
* * *
BY EARLY NOVEMBER it was time to go to London. Arriving at the airport in that city was a replay of arriving at the Ashoka Hotel for the Miss India preliminaries almost a year earlier. I watched as a stream of tall, gorgeous women from all around the world strode and sashayed and glided toward the baggage carousels, each arriving from her own point on the globe. I watched as they retrieved their bags ever so gracefully and floated through the throngs of other travelers to the exit doors and then disappeared outside to find the vehicles that would take us to our hotel. I was just giving myself a stern talking-to in order to prevent my insecurity from taking over, when wait! There was Lionel Richie! Having my very first European celebrity sighting be one of my absolute favorite singers was enough to lift my spirits and send me out to join the other girls happy and reenergized.
The Hilton in central London was to be our home for the next few weeks, and I settled in quickly with my roommate, Ganga Gunasekera, Miss Sri Lanka. Each day was packed full. At 8 a.m. or so, all ninety-five of us, plus chaperones, would pile onto the buses that awaited us outside the hotel and head out for a day of press conferences, photo shoots, media appearances, charity events, and sightseeing. Every morning, Mom would take a train into London from Hounslow, where she and Dad and Sid were staying with family friends, the Upadhyas, to offer me a cheerful wave and a bit of encouragement from afar before I climbed onto the bus. Even though there was no opportunity to speak on those mornings, she wanted to be sure I felt her support. When we returned to the hotel in the evenings, there was about an hour when we were free to visit with any family who may have traveled to London. Mom was always there—sometimes with Dad and Sid, sometimes on her own—and she was always the last to leave. She was my anchor, there for me morning and night. Even now, when I pass that London hotel, I can picture the buses parked there and the girls coming in and out, and the spot in the lobby where we used to meet our families. Even now I can remember seesawing between the anxiety and the total excitement I felt every day. Rarely did I find a midpoint of calm equilibrium.
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