I was Miss India in 68
Khambatta puts 86 beauty queens between covers
The Miss India of 1960s vintage sitting on the sofa is still a formidable beauty. Formidable enough to offer stiff competition to Shikha Swaroop, Miss India 1988, whos sitting beside her.
Persis Khambatta is also looking remarkably unruffled, despite the fact that youre only the 24th person asking her the same questions. She is still getting exactly the right emotions and inflexions into her words. Only the marginally glazed look and the number of cigarette butts in the ashtray indicate how arduous the whole affair is proving to be.
But then, she has little choice. Having chosen to write a coffee table book to be hawked for Rs 1,495 she has to meet people and keep talking about the same things over and over again.
Theres a lot of unprofessionalism in India, she explains. Pet lament of another Indian settled abroad? No, thats the answer to how she hit upon the idea of writing Pride of India in the first place.
Two years ago, she was down for a short visit and was hounded by television and movie producers to act in their ventures. The number of serials and projects she signed, she says, was enough for her to tell her agent in the US that she was going to stick around in India for two years or so. But when she arrived, the projects had been delayed, shelved, or changed.
So there she was at a loose end. And a girl has her pride. I wasnt going to go back to my agent and say that I was free after all.
Instead, she started toying with alternative careers. Starting a modelling agency was one idea, but the lack of loyalty in Indian fashion circles gave her pause for thought. Suppose I groomed a girl, made her famous and then she walked away?
She asked her friend, publishing moghul Nari Hira, what he thought of the idea of her producing a book on Miss Indias past and present. Absolutely fabulous idea, he is supposed to have responded, you had better find a publisher immediately.
But it took a lot of shopping around before she found one Parijat Media Ltd. Has she written anything before? No, but I love writing letters and wrote a lot of them earlier, she says, adding, I was also asked to write a column in Iowa but couldnt because I had other commitments.
The books title came courtesy a former prime minister. When I came to India earlier, Indira Gandhi introduced me with Who doesnt know Persis she is the pride of India, and that was why I called my book Pride of India.
The writing was the easy part: before that came the task of catching up with her subjects.
She shudders delicately, and reaches for another cigarette. Former Miss Indias dont meet even other former Miss Indias easily. No one was ever awake before nine in the morning and if I rang after that, theyd already left. One girl was continually in the bath, anothers secretary said she had just gone out whenever Persis identified herself.
But some were more cooperative than the rest. A few of them got back within two calls.
There were other hurdles. Eves Weekly, which used to hold a contest rivalling Feminas in the old days, has burnt down no records were left. Some people had gone abroad or changed addresses. The fact that the first Miss India went way back to 1947 did not make the task easier.
In the end, she persuaded 86 of these glamorous ladies to talk to her and provide photographs. (Some had to be shot again by old friend Gautam Rajadhyaksha.)
Eighty-six Miss Indias seems a lot for a country thats celebrating 50 years. I took everyone who went out of India to participate the second and third runners up, also both the Femina and Eves queens. She also spoke to eight judges including Sunil Gavaskar and Amitabh Bachchan and some backroom boys.
Did she interview them all personally? Everyone except Juhi Chawla, she says proudly, and some girls really opened up. They told me such intimate details, you wouldnt believe!
But dont bother searching for juicy bits in the book. I wrote only about their achievements and kept those things out, she says virtuously. I am sure they will thank me for that one day.
Anyway, she points out, it wouldnt have looked good given that the profits of this book are going to the charity run by Mother Teresas order. One of her entourage breaks in, Other Miss Indias have only talked about how much they admired Mother Teresa Persis has actually done something about it. Other details follow. The book is being printed on the finest art paper in Singapore to create the right image. Ten thousand copies will be printed in the first run. Yes, everyone is confident that it will sell. At least every NRI will want to buy and keep the book, says Persis.
Time is running out and anyway, Persis herself is quite happy to talk about life and those bits of the universe unconnected with the book.
The earlier Indian queens were really beautiful but they lost out in the world contests because they had fuller hips. The starved, slim look is being cultivated only now.
Ive heard that all men think about sex every 14 seconds.
Attitudes have changed the same women who thought it immoral when you chose modelling as a profession now say, my granddaughter wont be up to anything even if she is travelling alone with the photographer.
My budgets went haywire in my days models used to charge Rs 100 now they charge in tens of thousands.
The next interviewer walks in and Persis starts all over again patiently. As I leave, I get the answer to a question Id forgotten to ask. What else could I write about? I know nothing about the medical profession and couldnt have written a book on doctors.
Thats logical retired bureaucrats write books about the civil service, former Miss Indias write about other former Miss Indias. Is Khambatta starting a trend here? Now theres a potential future blockbuster the memoirs of two beauty queens, co-authored by Ash and Sush!
