If the results of beauty pageants these days are to be believed, Indian women are no more beautiful. Even today, Miss India Vanya Mishra lost the Miss World race. Gone are the golden days of the nineties when beauty queens from India outclassed others. Their dismal performance has drawn flak from all quarters of our society. Opposition parties have sought an explanation from the government and as usual, warned of disruptions in Parliament until some action is taken on this matter of national interest.

Considering the gravity of the issue, the Prime Minister has finally broken his vow of silence. “We fully understand our responsibilities. In order to scrutinize the problems, a committee has been appointed. A team of experts will be sent to Venezuela to study their model of churning out beauty queens. Unlike the Liberhan Commission which took 17 years to submit its report, this committee is expected to finish off within 10 years.”

In order to hog the limelight, Kapil Sibal jumped on the bandwagon. “Meanwhile the HRD Ministry has decided to open an institute, Indian Institute of Cosmetology (IIC), to cater to aspiring beauty queens. Courses in ramp walk, celebrity tantrums, table manners, etc. will be offered. Thus students’ persona will be replaced by a pretentious, but sophisticated image. Alumni of IIC will have an option of replacing senior citizens of Air India cabin crew as air hostesses.

“In order to groom the talent at the grass-root level, an organization will be set up to accredit beauty parlours across the country. Through a set of stringent rules, we will ensure that the quality of these parlours is top notch and prevent them from mushrooming, unlike the engineering colleges. We are also thinking to invite parlour maids from all over the globe as visiting professors to ensure better all-round development of the students. For uplifting the downtrodden, subsidies will be provided to non-creamy layer for beauty treatments. And that’s not it yet. Our government is also thinking about introducing a one-shot entrance test for the aspiring beauty queens which will save them from the stress of appearing in a number of separate contests across the country. Forty percent weightage will be given to their looks and figure statistics in the past.”

Opposition parties have also entered in this politics over beauty pageants. In the rigorous beauty contests, contestants have to flaunt their zero size in swimwear as well as prove their intelligence. So Jayalalithaa, Mayawati and Rabri Devi have offered to give guest lectures at IIC. Jayalalithaa wants to share her physical fitness secrets. Mayawati will deal with physical appearance whereas Rabri Devi is keen on inculcating oratory during the guest lecture. Even Mamata Banerjee has shown interest in giving guest lectures over temperament at IIC.

In spite of opposing the notion of beauty pageants, most VHP members have secretly planned to visit IIC’s fashion weeks regularly to ogle at the aspiring beauty queens. Baba Ramdev too considers such contests against our culture but may consider opening Patanjali Chikitsalaya in IIC’s campus for treatment of eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia of these role models on grounds of social service.

Since the issue is related with women empowerment and their pride so it is likely to overshadow trivial issues such as corruption, unemployment, inflation etc in the upcoming polls. It has given the incumbent UPA a glimmer of hope to retain power even after a series of scams and galloping inflation. Besides, these steps will help the skinny aspirants realize their dream of winning the coveted title thus restore India’s pride.

(ed. Sunaina Patnaik and Aparna Singh; Abhishek, Aparna and Sunaina are interning with NTMN in its Internship-cum-Training program 2012)