I woke up early last Saturday morning and was bemused to find a young Indian woman's face smiling at me from the pages of every Indian newspaper. The new Miss Universe had been crowned and she was from the same country as I am. Tall, toned, and toothy, she was like all the other 78 contestants in physical characteristics. Every single newspaper said her intelligence truly set her apart from the other contestants. Apparently, the other young women could not even come up with logical answers in English to some inane questions. The newspapers were gushing over the fact that India was now a "beauty powerhouse" because the past few years have seen several other young Indian women crowned Miss World or Miss Universe. India was now beating Venezuela (the previous beauty competition leader) at its own game. Somehow this whole sequence of events reminds me of my college days.

We students used to go scouring the library for all the previous years question papers. Old question papers in hand, we would be done preparing for the year end examinations in a few days. Many of us would score high enough marks and everyone would be happy all around, parents, teachers, we ourselves. Proud papas would crow about their son's or daughter's success at college. Nobody seemed to be too bothered by the fact that many of us never actually learnt what we were supposed to. They were oblivious to the fact that we did no in depth analysis of any of the engineering course materials and hence would most probably not make very good engineers. It was enough that most of us graduated with good ranks. It was not very relevant to these people that our knowledge was built on foundations of sand. You may ask me how the Miss Universe is related to all this. That is because these beauty competitions, in reality, are all about appearance and less about being a good, decent human being.

Isn't that supposed to be the ultimate aim of these pageants? A beautiful, smart woman who actually has a heart and soul. Instead eyes, ears and tongues are tuned to advertising and modeling contracts. There is no fun and definitely no joy in watching a carefully coifed, glittering woman talking about world peace or hunger while the money spent on her cosmetics alone would put food on the table for many poor people. As a business venture, the beauty pageants are great but they do not represent the people of the world. They definitely do not mean much to India or most of its women. Yet, the newspapers hailed this as a victory much like that of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.

India has hundreds of millions of women living in it. Many of them have horrible lives. Denied access to education, proper food, doctors, they grow up anemic and weak. Women in their 20's and 30's look decades older because of the back breaking work they do. Millions of women in the rural areas do most of the routine, thankless jobs of growing crops and harvesting them. They spend all their days in the sun and wind and rains, trying to make a life for their family. When and where do these women get an opportunity for manicures, pedicures, orthodontic fittings, plastic surgery to enhance this or that, or wearing clothes designed by Hemant Trivedi. Is the Miss Universe supposed to represent these Indian women?

There are other Indian women who suffer at the hands of husbands who beat them up. Most women take care of their children without proper electric supply, water supply and doctors. They endure long treks on buses and trains as they head to their jobs as teachers, nurses, doctors, insurance agents, bank clerks or road sweepers. The newspapers say that several Indian women winning the beauty pageants will encourage the beauty industry to grow in India. Are these overworked women the women who are supposed to buy the cosmetics? Indian women have always been beautiful minus a million shades of lipsticks or nail polish. In addition to trying to live a decent life in a difficult country, are women now expected to look like fashion plates? Women everywhere in the world, including India, do want to look good. There is, however, a difference between wanting to look good and being expected to look beautiful. The former is empowering to women and the latter is belittling women. To begin with, women in India have been given a worse deal in life than the men. And now, a heightened expectation that people have of women to match some impractical standard of beauty will only make the situation worse.

The beauty business works in developed countries because they have solved the basic problems of food, water, shelter and education for all their citizens. Women don't have to wait hours for a water from a municipal water tap or need to take their young daughters out of school to work as maids. Looking beautiful and put together works in many western places, where there is no dust or grime to turn even youthful features old beyond their years. Don't get me wrong. I think that the beauty competition industry has a few merits and anything that helps women be successful in some career is good thing. However, there is also the effect these competitions have on people, especially young girls. In a country like USA there are millions of girls suffering from anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders because of these excessive expectations of beauty from them. I'm sure there are people in India who remember those terrible advertisements for ‘Fair and Lovely’ cream where some young woman wanted to look fair just before her wedding. In India, a fair complexion has always been considered better. I know many people who have had others rudely comment about their coloring or some other physical qualities. Definitely Miss Universe doesn't stand for these people.

While the young Miss Universe deserves praise for taking part in the competition and winning it, I feel that the media (both print and electronic) has overdone the hype. Have you seen a newspaper ever dedicate pages and pages to a school teacher who helped educate hundreds of school children during the course of her long career or a doctor who helped cure many illnesses? Of course, these sort of articles would probably not sell. People want something easy on the eyes. I'm equally guilty of this attitude too. But now, I've decided that before I admire a person whose face smiles at me from the newspapers, I will look for heroes closer to reality. I'm sure they exist. And I will thank them and encourage them in their efforts to make this world a better place. And then, maybe, I'll find out which shade of lipstick Miss Universe likes best.

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