Khalid Mohamed

It’s an unscribbled rule of show business. Beauty pageant winners are expected to become the Next Big Heroines, as soon as they are crowned with those sparkling tiaras and air-kissed with a hundred muaaahs on stage.

Eons ago, I’d asked Sangeeta Bijlani about her plans after the Miss India crowning and she had smiled wide. Bollywood would be her next stop. Alas, she didn’t leave much of a mark. Stormy boyfriends and placid performances culminated in a typhoonish marriage with Mohammad Azharuddin. I’m not clued into the current status of the Sangy-Azhar marriage, but do feel Ms Bijlani’s heart pangs subverted a career which could have gone places. She wasn’t bad at all in J.P. Dutta’s Hathyar.
For this Sunday, I’m talking specifically of the Miss Indias who returned home with the titles of Miss Universe and Miss World. Like Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai did. Sush, as she was and is still called by friends and enemies, was somewhat blasé, que sera sera about Bollywood and all that. Ashji had already been blitzed with movie offers, and the two landed up on screen with varying results.
Sush was adored, considered a powerhouse actress, but where is she now? The lady, after lousy liaisons galore, appears to have locked herself in a faux ivory tower. Oddly, she’d wear fur coats in the height of summer. That must have taken a toll. Her arch-rival (undeclared) Ash was the nation’s most delicious eye candy, considered a ‘plastic’ actress but is in a super-comfort zone: marriage, a child and continuing brand endorsements.
And whoa, Diana Hayden couldn’t become a Bollygal given her attitude and outer-space accent. Miss Asia Pacific Dia Mirza couldn’t act for pistachios and has sought to produce her own films (hawwww!). Lara Dutta oozed sex appeal before becoming Mrs Bhupathi, and produced Delhi Challo on her own steam. It was okay but she’s in near oblivion now.
Come to think of it, apart from Aishwarya Rai, pageant winners couldn’t quite ever chart out a career with the stealth that Priyanka Chopra has. When she was crowned at the age of 18, she would shrug, “Not interested in acting.” A pause, and then the addition, “Not really. I don’t know.”
Must hand it to Ms PC, she overcame a nasty incident involving her secretary, who revealed the list of phone conversations between her and a topline hero. Next: after going splitsville with Harman Baweja and Shahid Kapur, she still landed on her feet.
The teen-queen who was unsure about acting is now all over the place. She’s recorded a music CD too — although I’m not sure about what happened to the album after the release of its single track. She has a National Award on her shelf, seems to be in favour with Salman and Shah Rukh Khan, and has this image of a heroine who can act too. Can she? Occasionally. Actually, she’s best at portraying the archetypal heroine — sing, dance, break into kung-fu-karate, hammer up guns and goons.
If you ask me, she’s the last of the beauty pageant winners who has managed to handle stardom. Inevitably though, on hitting the age of 30, she has killer competition. Guess those diamond-studded tiaras aren’t forever.