Indian Stunners

When Sushmita Sen, the first Indian to be chosen Miss Universe, made her triumphant return to the subcontinent after the 1994 pageant, there were victory processions, gala parties and countless interviews. For fans like Yukta Mookhey, a teenager growing up in a middle-class suburb of Bombay, Sushmita was living a dream: she had been wrenched from an ordinary life and forged by the blast furnace of glamour and fame into a celebrity. Yukta, then 15, told her family that she too would one day wear a glittering crown. Her parents smiled at her adolescent fantasies, talked about college and dismissed the whimsical ambition. But Yukta sulked and threw tantrums and eventually persuaded her father to support her participation in the 1999 Miss India contest. She won that title and later became Miss World, planting fantasies, no doubt, in the minds of other teenage Indian girls. Now those kids have even more inspiration to draw from. Last week another Indian, Lara Dutta, who was chosen this year's Miss Universe, came home to glorious parties and photo ops.

The unprecedented run of global titles--in the past six years, five Indians have won the coveted Miss Universe or Miss World crowns while four others were runners-up--has spawned a beauty boom in a country where only a generation ago women in the glamour business were considered licentious. Now, conservative middle-class dads urge their daughters into bikinis, and moms put them on high-protein diets intended (perhaps naively) to help them achieve the ramp-mandatory 5-ft. 7-in. height requirement. The organizer of the annual Miss India contest, the Times of India group of newspapers and magazines, reports receiving applications by the sackful. Eventually, 600 hopefuls will be chosen for the elimination rounds, and just 30 will make it to the final show. But the deluge of applicants continues. "People have definitely become very, very aspirational," says Pradeep Guha, president of the Times group, who decides on the shortlist. "I have had parents come in and cry, plead, threaten and even exert political pressure to push their child."

The appeal is obvious. Once noticed, the young women immediately find a place in the world of modeling and acting. Pageant sponsors often offer lucrative endorsement deals. Several beauty queens are now top movie stars in Bollywood.

But for every successful Yukta or Lara who goes on to tear-drenched smiles as she receives her bouquet and tiara, thousands of other hopefuls end up humiliated and exploited. More and more young men and women are signing up with costly, dubious Indian modeling institutes, where a two-week session and a photo portfolio can run up to $1,000. The desire to break through to the beauty elite can force women into unsavory situations. Anorexia and steroid abuse are increasing. There are many stories of fixed contests, nepotism and the casting couch. "Most of our people are out-of-towners," says Atul Kelkar, a manager of Smiles, a Bombay model-training agency. "I tell them that the amount of trouble you get into is directly proportional to your desperation."

Those who don't make the national pageants, like the Miss India gala, have to settle for other, less glamorous affairs, including scores of neighborhood beauty shows, intercollegiate contests and parade-queen competitions. In Bombay earlier this month, for example, 16 women tramped up and down a lumpy catwalk in a damp, steamy tent vying for the title Miss Monsoon. "Please watch out for holes in the carpet," warned the choreographer during a run-through. "We don't want any falls." Seventeen-year-old Rebecca Alvares, one of 150 applicants, explained, "This is a real stepping-stone for me. Maybe someone will spot me here."

The expanding list of pageants is spurred and sponsored by cosmetics companies eager to tap into the $1 billion-plus Indian market. The search for Miss Monsoon, for instance, was funded by American Dreams, which sells "fine fragrances from the U.S.A." It is these vendors, say cynics, who have put the spotlight on Indian beauty. With millions of Indians tuning in for live broadcasts of competitions featuring their countrywomen, the pageant scene is an advertiser's dream. "I am not getting paranoid about an international conspiracy, but it obviously helps the cosmetics giants to have India associated with beauty," says novelist Shobha De, who often judges pageants. "Indian women are among the most beautiful in the world, but there is something odd about the world's discovering this all of a sudden."

Defenders of the beauty industry argue it is India that has just discovered its radiant masses. Urban women are spending more on looking good, signing up for aerobics, skin treatments, silicon implants and nose or jaw jobs, which occasionally end in disaster. Cable TV, especially the 24-hour fashion channel, has brought with it a dramatically different notion of dressing. Tight skirts, cocktail dresses and power suits are In, even for women used to being seen in a wispy sari. As the Indian economy prospers, there is much more income to spare on designer wear. "The quality [of contestants] has definitely improved, and now any of our finalists are near international standards," says the Times group's Guha. "Today we go to win."