ALL of 17, Gehna Singh speaks fluently on issues close to the bosom of a professional pageant princess: aids, hunger, the future of our children. She has had a lot of practice. When she was 16, she entered the Miss India contest, but the organisers sent her back saying she was too young. Her mother, Rummy Judge, a member of the Madhya Pradesh Congress and the driving force behind Gehna, was not deterred. In 2001, Gehna became Miss Bhopal and soon after, first runner-up in the Miss Lashkara contest-the channel views the contest as a big service to Punjabi women and holds it exclusively for them. Last year, it received 200 applications, of which nearly 150 were from small towns like Patiala and Bathinda in Punjab. Gehna, more so her mother, believes the contest has launched her as a star-she has bagged a role in the film Shabnam Mausi, opposite Ashutosh Rana.

GLAM GIRLS: Contestants at the Miss UP 2002 pageant

The crumbling of the straight and narrow socialist economy since the mid-1980s has seen a stunting of the standard avenues of professionalism and given greater legitimacy to the beauty industry. But while metropolitan India may have discovered the acne behind the veneer of beauty contests, small-town India is teeming with Gehnas for whom beauty is a vehicle for social mobility. For young men and women from Sonepat to Secunderabad, contests are not a cattle show, but a career move. And though last year's Miss India Neha Dhupia may not be as successful as Aishwarya Rai, she's still a role model for a star-struck youngster in Fazilka.

Where there's supply, there will be demand. So from national contests such as Grasim Mr India to micro ones like Mr and Miss Wilderness Fashion Camp 2002 at Saranda forests in Orissa, beauty pageants are mushrooming. It won't be long before we will be competing, like the Americans, for Miss Plump India or Ms Petite Hoshangabad Achievement. Jodhpur is making a start. The Arora Samaj organises an annual Ms and Mr Arora contest.

Lucknow

Khushboo Gupta, 18, and Omi Joshi, 20, won the Miss and Mr UP contest this year. Both are local celebrities now and harbour dreams of making it to Mumbai.

The glamour boom has never looked glossier. Sociologist Shiv Viswanathan calls it the union of the small town and the global imagination: "The mystique of beauty contests may have worn off in Mumbai and Delhi, but now half of India is bypassing Delhi and Mumbai to stage its own costume ball. That is why you see so many bhangra beauties." The organisers of Grasim Mr India testify to it. In 1996, the third year of the contest, they received 3,000 applications, while applications for 2002 are streaming in: 12,000 and still counting. More than half of these are from small towns. Event Manager Anshumaan Swami says it was part of the plan. Between 1999 and 2000, the regional rounds of the contest were held in smaller towns like Ahmedabad and Pune. "That is when our popularity rocketed,'' he says.

The boys who made it
	In Sonepat, every other day, at least 10 people come to me seeking help on how to become a model."
Ajay Malik, from Sonepat, lost out in the Grasim Mr India 1998, but after working on his English, he became the first runner-up in 2000. He is now on contract with a Helsinki-based modelling agency.
	"If I keep my mouth shut, I can easily pass off as an Italian. I already have offers from Milan."
Virender Bhooker, a postgraduate in Hindi from Panipat, first came to Delhi seven years ago. He has done several TV commercials and now aims to move to Milan.

It also gave fresh-from-Sonepat aspirants like Ajay Malik and Harender "Harry" Dahiya hope. Malik, 26, was on his way to becoming an engineer when he decided to capitalise on his looks. He was routed in the Mr India finals in 1998 but when he returned in 2000, he had worked on his "communication skills". Now he speaks English with an undefinable accent that could easily pass off as exotic in the places he is sent as a model on contract with the Helsinki-based Suomen modelling agency. It's Helsinki one day, Paris the next, and Milan yet another day. Both he and Dahiya, 25, who wants to be a supermodel and has already done campaigns for Grasim and Dr Morepen, are much sought after by wannabe models in Sonepat.

Virender Bhooker from Diwana village in Panipat, Haryana, is also a local celebrity. "Girls come to me for autographs when I go home," says Bhooker, whose first tv campaign for Harry Collection was in 1995 when he didn't even have a passport. Now he has clocked quite a few airmiles, flying from Santorini Island to Malaysia, South Africa to Thailand. He is still conscious of his spoken English but is proud of the fact that with his mouth shut, he is often mistaken for an Italian. Perfect, since Milan is his ultimate destination.

Beauty as a passport to fame has cracked open even a left-oriented state like Kerala. The number of entries for the only major Miss Kerala contest held annually since 1999 has more than doubled to 230. "Initially, people discouraged us saying it wouldn't work here. But the society here is definitely changing," says Ram Menon of Impresario Event Marketing Company which stages the pageant in Kochi.

The making of a small-town model is a collaborative process. When Bhooker came to Delhi-based photographer Suvo Das, he was "absolutely raw". Das adopted Bhooker and turned him around for free. Meena Anilkumar, who runs Catwalk, a Kochi-based modelling agency, offers such advice for a fee. There is, in fact, a spurt in the growth of grooming schools such as hers. Take Mr UP Omi Joshi. When he decided he needed professional help, he signed up with Purple Media, a Lucknow-based modelling school. The city has seen the emergence of as many as four such schools in the past five years. There are also wardrobe managers who have made a career out of suggesting appropriate clothes, but Jaspreet Singh, a former model who now runs his own modelling agency in Delhi, advises against these. He charges about Rs 15,000 for a portfolio but also offers free do-it-yourself advice. "Grooming schools fleece the small-town aspirants. Only a good assignment can groom you," says Singh.

Youngsters in search of a dream don't mind paying good money for all the help they can get. Like Faisal Latif, 21, who plays cricket for a first-division club in Kolkata. He's paying Rs 9,999 for the Wilderness Fashion Camp 2002 as a launching pad for a Bollywood career. "My aim is to reach Mumbai. If I do well in the beauty pageant, I hope to land some advertising deals," says Latif. To achieve this, the pace bowler works out every day, apart from taking some weight-management lessons from specialists. The contestants hope the tag of Mr and Miss Fashion Camp 2002 will change their lives.

Kochi

Winner of Miss Kerala 2000 and TV anchor Ranjini Haridas (right) was taught all the right moves by Meena Anilkumar

Bhopal

Priya Singh is all of 16 but has already won the Femme Miss India Teens and opted out of college; (below, left) Gehna Singh, Miss Bhopal 2001 and first runner-up in the Miss Lashkara contest, with her mother

The products of glamour boom are proud of it. Take Ranjini Haridas, 20, who won the Miss Kerala crown in 2000. "I know many youngsters here who scoff at me and say, 'Oh, that beauty pageant girl'. But frankly I don't care." says the Communicative English student. Her mother, Sujatha Haridas, is her biggest supporter. "I know most families in our social strata do not approve of this. But I wanted my daughter to enter the pageant to make her self-assured and help overcome her father's sudden death." She seems to have succeeded. Ranjini has since modelled for Tata Tea and anchors a quiz show on Jeevan TV.

The Lolitafication of beauty has meant that girls as young as 15 can contemplate a life spent measuring the thickness of their eye shadow and the gloss factor of their lipstick. Catch Priya Singh, 16, at a press meet in Bhopal with the beauty queen band over her slender shoulders. A picture of raw youth and winner of the Femme Miss India Teens 2002 (advertisements for which she saw in a national newspaper), she took a conscious decision to opt out of college. "I want to concentrate on a career in films, television and modelling," she says, proudly displaying the letter she has been provided by tv producers in Delhi to enable her to get a passport. "I'm doing a lot of teleserials and will be going to Bulgaria and Bosnia for shoots soon," she says with the confidence of a girl who believes she has arrived.

It's this desire that Zee wanted to tap into when it started the Zee India Teen Queen last year. This year, it went a step further and organised the Zee World Teen Queen. In Lucknow, where the Rajnath Singh government had banned beauty contests, there were two years of consistent protests from models and fashion designers. Finally, when Chief Minister Mayawati lifted the ban this year, a group, Friends Club, promptly held the Mr UP and Miss UP contest. Eighteen-year-old Miss UP, Khushboo Gupta, couldn't be happier. Now treated as a star in Lucknow, she plans to start modelling full time. Her role model? Aishwarya Rai.

Gupta may well have a great future. On-the-job training, grooming and good clothes can have a transformative effect. As Delhi-based model coordinator Rashmi Virmani says, "When Jesse Randhawa came to us from Jaipur in 1994, she was shy and gawky, but stunning. We did about 100 fashion shows with her before she moved to Mumbai. Now she's a supermodel in demand abroad."

As Dahiya says, "In this technologically advanced world, it doesn't matter where you are from. If you have a mobile phone, you can never be out of touch." In the new borderless world of pouts and poses, with Fashion TV accessible to all as easily as the latest issues of Vogue and Harper's, small towns can also translate into big-time glamour.

- with bureau reports