Worthwhile Princesses

I was 11 and sitting in my study doing home work. I had the least idea of the term beauty pageant, Miss World or the Miss Universe, for my home work I was supposed to write an essay on the topic “My Mother” with a despairing mood as of not knowing how and where to start from I clearly remember that to distract myself I climbed on the shelves and started shuffling through my mother’s magazines when I came across the photo of lovely princess Julia Alexandrovna Kourotchkina wearing a crown and a sash and assumingly had two younger princesses or maybe her maids or the court of entourage to be honest is what I thought then of the runners up. The cover photo of the magazine attracted me so much that I started to read the headline written in Urdu that Russia won Miss World 1992. A title I knew of nothing but was sure to award it to my mother, unknowingly anything of the pageant I wrote an essay that described my mother as the Miss World because she does all the worthwhile things that no other mother would do taken for granted and considering my mother as a super mom. I vividly remember the smile on my teacher’s face after reading my essay. Then I forgot everything about the beauty pageant except the blue eyes of this Russian princess.

My second tryst was during my summer camp at age 13 in June of 1994. I had always been interested in sketching and my art teacher wanted me to sketch someone very beautiful and my ultimate choice was to sketch none other than the beautiful Sushmita Sen from India who was crowned Miss Universe 1994. Later Aishwarya Rai won the Miss World 1994 and it was her crowning which actually pushed me into finding out and learning about what actually these beauty pageants are, what their purpose is and how they decide upon a winner. Definitely one thing that my mother told then which I remember still is that the world suffers a lot, and this celebration is to select a beauty queen who can approach the rich people and bring under their attention the plight of the poor. Little did I knew then that 7 years later, at age 20, I would leave my job as the editor of the British Council Newsletter HYDE PARK JUNIORS and form an NGO SOME – Save Our Mother Earth and associate it with a national beauty pageant Miss Pakistan Quest.

At the time of inception in 2001, the international beauty pageants I choose for the winner and the runner ups of my national beauty pageants were entirely based on their worthwhile presence, may it be World Miss University or Miss Earth, I would study in detail the projects they encourage their delegates to take upon as well as the en codes they would follow, however, almost a decade down, I find that luster missing from many pageants and I feel extremely in bad taste that most of the then worthwhile pageants have become dollar businesses and concentrate more on quantity and quantity alone and not on their quality. For me one of the great characteristics of any international pageant is that its winner has a set of manifestos by which she will tirelessly pursue in the entire duration of her career. Be it AIDS awareness for Miss Universe, charity for Miss World, international understanding for Miss International or environmental issues for Miss Earth, or promotion of tourism industry and fostering harmony for Miss Tourism Queen International all these pageants can be clearly defined and demarked. In addition to these I would also like to mention here the efforts of World Miss University beauty pageant to raise awareness of the need of education among women and Miss International in promoting international brotherhood and peace. There are some very glamorous beauty pageants also on the rim which although maybe grand but I wonder how come they being shoved to be considered as major pageants when nothing, as in NOTHING, is heard from its winners from the time they get crowned? Sure, these pageants are great and worthy to watch but what platforms are they pursuing?

As the Japanese and Korean culture of modesty and honor requires good works without much grandiosity there is news about Miss International and World Miss University winners working but not much fanfare is being directed into their efforts. For example, they are intensively involved with UNICEF in providing aid and education to children and as I say that the question is of not so much about being heard it is more about what is being done and unlike Miss World, Miss Universe or Miss Earth where a specific national pageant exists say Miss Earth Reunion pageant, Miss Universe Canada pageant or Miss Thailand World, Miss International and World Miss University in most cases is consigned to as a minor less important pageants at national levels. Hence, aside from their being the winner appearances as Miss International or World Miss University, these girls will not be attending any of their national beauty pageants to help crown their national successors for these two beauty contests. I don’t know and I am not sure but in my non expert opinion the World Miss University or the Miss International are not that press savoir-faire and savvy and this may be a major reason why not much is relayed to the rest of the world and with these reasons, the winners of World Miss University or the Miss International do not slip right into stupor even if there is not much heard about them because this is typically what World Miss University or Miss International beauty queen is.

Saying so I would like to urge all the national directors associated with any of the international beauty pageant brands should respect and try to promote their events nationally as well as through social media internationally and also try to compel their national winners to keep pursuing the encode of their international counterpart even if their contestant has not won the international title, because to me the beauty pageant winners whether local or international are supposed to be worthwhile and exemplary for the youth of the age and time to come

and such contests should never reinforce the idea that girls be valued primarily for their physical appearance only while pushing them in tremendous pressure on women to conform to conventional beauty standards by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling and even cosmetic surgery because in my opinion such pursuit of physical beauty even encourages some women to diet to the point of harming themselves. Also in the end I would like to suggest all those interested in being part of this pageant industry that beware of certain thug pageants. Some beauty pageants have also been found to be fraudulent. The promoters charge large fees, require additional photos or specific attire that must be purchased from a sponsor, and in some cases award a prize to a confederate within the contest, and while the national contests or the international contests are planned another stated goal of them should be promoting self-esteem and public-speaking abilities of the contestants as it would give the winners of these pageants a sense of accomplishment and the winners should be aligned with community or social organizations to raise money for charities.