…Zeenat (Aman) was elected as Head Girl, and during her holidays, began to model. After her Senior Cambridge she won a scholarship to study in California sponsored by the American Field Services. She returned a year later and promptly knocked on Femina's door to apply as a journalist! Instead, Vimla Patil put her on the magazine cover with a Raggedy Anne doll and noted inside that Zeenat had returned from California with 'definite views on everything from free love to advertising, a field she hoped to join someday.' Encouraged by her mother, Zeenat got involved right away with the advertising world and began photographic modelling and ramp modelling which included the Femina Miss India shows.

"One day," Zeenat remembers, "one of my friends joked, 'Hey, you're in the wrong section of the show, why don't you join in the Miss India contest just for a lark?' I was a Scorpio like many of the other girls who won later (Sushmita, Aishwarya)and I had so much faith in myself that I went to Manila with a purpose: that I would win the Miss Asia and return. I was already a model for two years so I had a fair idea about make up, carriage and poise. First I won the Miss Photogenic title and I know this sounds terrible to say, but I was so focused that I felt there was no way I could lose. I remember when there were the final five of us standing on stage, some people below in the crowd were shouting to me, 'You've won, you've won, you've won!' Honestly, by the time the final results were announced - Miss Asia 1970, Miss India - there was absolutely no element of surprise left."

As the Miss Asia 1970, she was taken on a tour of China and Hong Kong where the winners performed in fashion shows and promotions but returned to India to a nightmarish reception. "Someone had telephoned the Customs and accused me of smuggling," she says. "We had received such a wonderful welcome in every Far Eastern country we had visited and when I came to India the custom officers kept me waiting at the airport for five hours and searched every piece of my luggage. I was really in tears. Subsequently we found out that one of the Miss India contestants who had not made it was very jealous and, since her father worked in the Customs, this was her way of taking revenge."…

                                                              BACK

Excerpted from Pride of India by Persis Khambatta, Rs 1495, Parijat Media Limited, with the publishers permission. Special copies, signed by many of the Miss Indias and priced at Rs 5000, are also available. The proceeds of this special copies will go to the Missionaries of Charity.

Tell us what you think of this feature