Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai, Diana Hayden, Lara Dutta, and others down the years who did not wear the crown have all had one thread in common — the magazine, writes Sathya Saran.

Only yesterday, it happened again.
A former Femina Miss India Contestant stepped into my room to chat with me. She had been a contender the year before last, and had not really gone beyond the first round. In most contests, it would make the contender feel deep rejection, feel she was somehow not up to standard... all the things that come with being disappointed.

But like others before her, this young woman showed no negativity. Her smile was bright and hopeful still, her eyes bright, and she sat across listening carefully. What she wanted was to know how to further her career. Since the Contest she had done a bit here and a bit there, as much as her studies as an aspiring CA would permit, but she wanted to break into the big time, which is why she was here.

As I talked to her, giving her names of people who could help her realise her dream, I wondered what it was that set her apart. Gave her that extra zing to go on towards realising her goal. What was it in her that, despite the fact that she had never worn the crown, made me feel she was yet a winner through and through?

I’ve said it before, that in the Femina Miss India Contest, there are no losers. Everyone who participates goes back with enough inputs to lead her confidently onto the path she chooses for herself in life and career. I say it again.

It is the fact that we share the values that the magazine stands for with our contestants, year after year, that sets them apart as winners from just another set of beautiful, young hopefuls with stars in their eyes.

Of course, there is the training... about which much has been written in the media in India and overseas. The trainers are experts who know their field and are ready to share their knowhow to sculpt the raw material into near perfection. But over and above that is the caring that each contestant is privy to.

The cocoon that the magazine weaves around them, the warp and weft of which consists of believing in them and in nurturing their ability to believe in themselves... not just as contenders for India’s most coveted title, but as women of today who will become role models tomorrow.

Professionalism, integrity, empathy... the abstracts become tangible as the interaction goes on, as each contestant over the years realises that she can turn to the magazine for a supporting hand any time, if she so chooses.

It is a tenuous link, invisible but real. It gets stronger each time someone decides to turn back and look to us for a helping hand. And those who don’t, because they don’t need it, or choose to chart their own path, still remain ‘our girls’, gladdening our hearts with each new peak conquered.

Most important perhaps is the fact that each contestant, down the years, feels she is part of the Femina family. Regardless of whether she knows her forerunners, or is in touch with her peers, there is an unspoken camaraderie, a sorority of women achievers who can all claim they come from the Femina fold.

Embodying the values of Indian womanhood, setting themselves on the road to excellence, as women who can pass on the torch of their confidence to others less privileged, even as they use it to light their own path to newer successes.