E-Paper
Trina Chakravarty wins Miss India US title
Trina's mother Aparna Chakravarty was also a Miss India New York in 1982, writes Lalit K Jha.
Trina Chakravarty, a Bengali Indo-American, is the new Miss India US.
A first year student at University of Florida, Trina, 18, was declared winner of the Miss India US-2005 pageant by a panel of judges at the prestigious SunDome, Tampa in Florida on Saturday night.
Nisha Mirchandani, 24, and Tashi Sharma, 22, both from New York were respectively declared first and second runner-up among the 33 pageants from various parts of the United States at the scintillating function, which was attended by a few thousand people.
The crown was passed on to Trina by the outgoing Miss India US, Reshoo Pande, at the end of a glittering function, which went on for several hours on Saturday evening. Reshoo's parents are from Bihar.
Incidentally, Trina's mother Aparna Chakravarty was the Miss India New York in 1982, said Dharmatma Saran, Chairman, India Festival Committee, which has been organising the pageant since 1980.
In her first media interview after winning the crown of being the most beautiful Indian in the United States, Trina told HindustanTimes.com: "I am very excited about it. It is a momentous occasion for me."
Fluent in three languages -- English, French and Bengali -- Trina said she would prefer to devote her next year working among the younger generation Indians in the US raising their voices at appropriate forums and work for the children, who are so dear to her.
Trina who performed Bharatnatyam in the final rounds of the pageant to east-west fusion music, said her goal was to become a surgeon to help accident victims. Her father is a physician and mother an engineer.
Stating that her next target was to prepare for the coming Miss India WorldWide, likely to be held in December in Mumbai, Trina said her hobbies were India classical dances, Bharatnatyam in particular, and scientific research in microbilogy.
Saran said that for the first time in the 25-year history of the pageant in the US, mom-daughter duo has bagged the crown either at the regional or national level.
Organised by the India Festival Committee, the genesis of the pageant is being traced back to 1974 when the committee began its first annual India Festival in the Central Park, New York. An integral component of the festivals was the immensely popular fashion show, Saran said.
This fashion show, Saran said become so popular by 1979 that it was decided to start the first Miss India Pageant from 1980. "This is how, it all started. Now this is a big Indian event at the global level," he added.
