15 cities, 26 contestants, one crown! Palaash, a talent scouting company, reached out all across India to provide a platform to one and all to showcase their beauty and talent. Young women, from smaller towns/cities of India, with dreams to walk the ramp, yet unable to reach the bigger known pageants, may have found their chance.
A very Bollywood themed event, with a mix of various dance performances, catwalk rounds, question-answers and other elimination rounds made up for an entertaining show. Mugdha Godse graced the event as one of the judges, advising the contestants to be themselves, ahead of the grand finale.
The event, organized in partnership with many reputed sponsors including Black Dog, VLCC Institute, Brown Rice, Sonia Jetley the fashion designer and other brands, was hosted at the elaborate venue of Kingdom of Dreams. Starting with a red carpet reception and ending with dinner and cocktails, Palaash made it big for the contestants.
26 young women, with various different dreams and careers, were picked from Chandigarh, Kolkata, Amritsar, Bengaluru, Kanpur, Guwahati, Agra and more. As one of the contestants mentioned, Palaash provided these girls, some of them from very small and lesser known towns of India, a platform that they could have only dreamed of and never hoped to realize. One of the things that was commendable was that the hosts encouraged the contestants to speak in their mother tongue and not feel stressed about speaking in English. We see that the global Miss Universe and Miss World pageants also allow contestants to speak in their mother tongue, comfortably. Incorporating that trend here, and taking a step towards liberating ourselves from the pressure of speaking well in a language that is our own was a progressive move.
We hope to see Palaash grow year on year grow, find and groom more of these young women from smaller towns of India, build their confidence not just to look pretty but to be able to make a difference to the society and the nation.
