The new Ms Kerala!

KOCHI: It was more of a contest of confidence and attitude than beauty. Given the way the 22 finalists of the pageant walked, talked and conducted themselves on stage, it was impossible to believe that they were just any other Malayali girls till yesterday.

The HairOmax Miss Kerala 2010 which began sharp at 7 PM at the Le Meridien, Maradu, had anchors Sangeeta and Kishore Satya trying to get the crowd to liven up.

The girls introduced themselves with little speeches about their dreams and aspirations, often confessing to their limitations and weaknesses. These ranged from ‘This is the first time I’m speaking on stage’ and ‘I know that I don’t look the tall, fair concept of a beauty queen’ to ‘I’d rather be the best cobbler than a mediocre lawyer’ and ‘I want to reach for the moon and get there'.

The one who said the last got the crown at the end, incidentally. There was also the usual issue of mother tongue and place one grew up, with many girls asserting that they were true Malayalis though born and brought up elsewhere, while others pointed out that there was nothing ‘foreign about them’ in chaste Malayalam.

All of this was received with much applause, but when the love of the mother tongue was carried to an extreme by a contestant, it was thumbed down.

The entertainment programmes in between the rounds were quite spectacular this time; the performance by singer Abbey Fizardo deserves special mention, though even he found it impossible to get the staid Kerala audience to get up and dance.

The casuals round was a real visual treat, with all the 22 grooving to the peppy ‘Suddenly I See’ in fitted check tops accessorised with scarves and belts. The outfits by the official designers of the pageant-Adit and Semu - did wonders to the confidence levels of the girls and the change was visible.

Eleven were short-listed from the 22, on the basis of the first two rounds. The question-answer round, which narrowed down the final five, had some interesting sessions with questions like ‘Would you rather be a book or a song? (by Anitha Nair) and ‘Ask a question to your fellow participant’ (by judge Anoop Menon).

Winner Indu Thampy was asked to name seven ingredients of the Kerala sadya, which she promptly did. There was no looking back for Indu from then on, and by the time the final question answer round got over, it was pretty sure who the winner was going to be.

There were nearly a dozen other titles too like Miss Beautiful Hair, Eyes, Skin, Smile, Miss Photogenic, Miss Congeniality and even Miss Voice, by Club FM, which went to Renu Kuriachen.

By the time the show organised by Impresario ended at 12 AM, the audience had had oodles of fashion, beauty, talent, entertainment and a winner, while quite a few dreams were launched on stage.