Tenzin Yangzom, who was crowned Miss Tibet in 2014, arrived in Kochi on Thursday night. The teacher-cum-model, who is now settled in Sikkim, is excited on two counts. It is her first international beauty pageant. Secondly, she has heard a lot about the beaches and seafood of Kerala and she wants to indulge herself, as much as the groomers would allow her to.
Having studied in Christ University in Bangalore, she is quite familiar with Indian culture and the different woods like Bollywood and Kollywood but wants to catch up with Mollywood and all other things associated with Kerala during the week-long run-up to the grand finale of the Manappuram Miss Asia on August 18 at the Le Meredian hotel in Kochi.
The Indian entrant will be Kanika Kapur, who had earlier won the Miss Queen of India title. Many of the dozen other models from abroad who have descended on the city, like Arfe Marie of the Philippines, do not have much of an idea about God’s Own Country.
For Arfe, who was Miss Teen Philippines 2007, it is her first visit to India and she is loving the scenic beauty around the Beaumonde The Fern Ecotel where the contestants are put up for the photo shoots and grooming sessions.
Ajit Pegasus, the man behind the event, is excited and a bit exhausted at the whole effort of bringing an international event to Kochi. He says he has been nurturing this dream for five years and the organising took about six months when he visited places like Dubai, Sri Lanka and Malaysia and Nepal where auditions were held.
“It was not easy to get the girls here and procure business visas since tourist visas won’t suffice to participate in a contest like this. For countries like Pakistan and Palestine, we held online auditions. We zeroed in on a very pretty girl in Pakistan but we ran into a lot of visa issues and till date her participation is not confirmed. Similarly, we had selected the winner of Miss Bangladesh to represent that country but she had to drop out because of some personal problems. There is no time now to get a replacement as visa processing takes time.”
What came as a revelation to Ajit during all these interactions was the bad image about India in other countries. “They think ours is a country where there are a lot of rapes and violence. As for Kerala, very few have heard about it. So, events like this will go a long way in spreading a positive image about the country and the host city in other countries.”
The selection criteria included catwalk, attitude and language, says Ajit. “In many of these countries, models cannot converse in English but we asked for at least a minimum knowledge to communicate in that language. But we were not obsessed about size zero. If a girl is good, what is wrong if she is a little plump?” he asks. “In all our pageants, we believe in giving chance to girls with different characters and many of the winners have gone on to become highly successful models.”
There won’t be any bikini round, he clarifies. “I want to show that an international pageant can be held without a bikini round,” he says. Arun Ratna, a Malayali based in Dubai, will be the lead choreographer and Mrs India World Valentina will be the main groomer while the finale will be judged by Larissa from Russia, Sumutu Prasadini from Sri Lanka, Sohan Roy (film producer) and Natasha from India.
