Married divas

How often does a married woman up to the age of 50 get a chance to compete in a beauty pageant?

The answer used to be ‘never’, till 10 years ago, when Mrs. Maureen Wadia organised the first

HT Image

Gladrags Mrs. India Contest

. It made history.

“A contest for married women?” the critics scoffed. “Who wants to see married women in a beauty contest?” they said. How the tables have turned in 10 years.

Today, most married women have better figures than 90 per cent of single women around. They’ve become health conscious and beauty wise. Every married woman knows that there are a legion of single women out there eyeing their husbands, so no wife can afford to let herself go.

So like Mrs. Maureen Wadia, the organiser of the Mrs India Contest, always says, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Protectors and providers

Married women, above all, are born protectors. Men from the stone age were born to be providers and women, the protectors. Today, men and women are both providers and protectors. So women have learnt to become survivors. In this century, women have stepped out of the kitchen and into the workplace also.

Ten years ago, when Maureen Wadia, Editor and President of

Gladrags

Magazine and Beauty Pageants, started the Mrs India Contest, few believed that a beauty pageant for married women could be a runaway success. Maureen Wadia proved everybody wrong. Always a leader and trendsetter, Wadia succeeded in proving that even a mother of two or three children can retain her attractiveness, her vivaciousness, her figure, and look glamorous enough to be in a beauty pageant.

After years of holding the highly successful and extremely popular Mrs. India Contest, this year, in partnership with the Contest was the

Hindustan Times

, Maureen Wadia celebrated the 10th year of the Mrs India Contest by filming it as a 7-episode reality series, leading into the final Mrs India Contest. The final episode of the Mrs India reality series was the final round of the contest.

Winners declared

The winner of the Mrs India Contest in the momentous year was Mrs Kavita Sachdev of Mumbai. Kavita is 29 years old, has been married for 3 years, 6 months and has a 2-year-old daughter. She is 5’7” tall and has a beautiful face and figure. She was the unanimous choice of the judges.

The Judges for the Mrs India contest were Mugdha Godse (Actor), Irfan Pathan (Cricketer), Mrs Shanta Roy (Haier Marketing Executive), Mrs Maureen Wadia (President,

Gladrags

Magazine and Beauty Pageants), Madhur Bhandarkar (Director) and Ness Wadia (Managing Director, Bombay Dyeing and Real Estate Division).

The first runner-up crown was won by Mrs Jaysheel Anand, from Bengaluru, who is 28 years old, and has a height of 5’7”. She has been married for three years, and has a 9-month old daughter.

Future plans

The second runner-up crown was won by Mrs Karishma Mookhey from Chandigarh, who is 26 years old, and has a height of 5’ 5”. She has been married for 2 years.

Mrs. India 2010 will go to the USA to compete in the Mrs World Contest. She will compete against 75 countries for the crown. The first runner-up will represent India in the Mrs Globe Contest, in 2010.

The Mrs India Contest Reality Series began with 20 contestants. The eliminations in every programme have brought the final count of contestants down to the top 12 finalists who competed in the finals of the Gladrags Mrs. India Contest. The repeat telecast on

NDTV Imagine

of the finals will be on Saturday, January 2, 2010.