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Look, who wears the crown!
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Some of the participants at the recently held Chennai Man and Miss Chennai contests proved beauty and brain could co-exist
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Photo: R. Shivaji Rao
One for the camera Miss Chennai S. Samyuktha and Chennai Man Amit Nahar (centre) along with the runners-up
Who would’ve thought they weren’t joking when they announced a contest called Chennai Man, the equivalent of Miss Chennai for men. “Actually, it could’ve been worse,” a friend said. “Imagine enduring participants l
ining up for Chennai Boy, Chennai Guy, Chennai Stud or Chennai Dude.” True.
But hang on, maybe they didn’t because one of the sponsors hung on to the ‘Dude’ title for their sub-title prize. Yes, there was a Mint-O-Fresh Cool Dude. Just like there was a Fa Miss Lotus/Cherry. There were nearly two-dozen such sub-titles rationed out to all but two of the 13 semi-finalists. How much more contrived can this get for the sake of manufacturing feel-good?
Considering the corn quotient of the title/titles they were running for, the quality of participants for both contests certainly exceeded the collective creative quotient of the think-tank responsible for this cheese-fest. Thankfully, the horror of the show stops with what the titles were called. The contestants redeemed the show with reasonably intelligent answers compared to the ones we’re used to hearing in beauty pageants.
The Fa Miss Chennai and Chennai Man 2007 held at the Chennai Convention Centre was rich in production design, smartly anchored by Neelu and Vijay TV’s Bhavna and though a tad dragging, was entertaining in parts. Every year, the organisers VIBA have raised the bar and subsequently, even the length of the show.
This edition started on Sunday evening a little after half past seven and got over on Monday 12.20 a.m.
Fighting it out
Twenty-one-year-old S. Samyuktha, who in the final round named Jhansi Rani Laxmibai as the historical woman she identified with, was crowned Fa Miss Chennai 2007. “Not that my combat skills are good but because I consider myself a warrior having fought against odds all my life. Winners never quit and quitters never win,” she said. Twenty-year-old Rohini Singh’s Sita Mata won her the first runner-up. “She was a true blend of beauty, femininity and grace.”
Mother Teresa always does the job for beauty queens and like it won a title for Priyanka Chopra, it got for 24-year-old Swapna Rajasekar the second runner-up crown. To her credit, she sounded genuine when she said: “It’s fun to live a life for ourselves but it calls for a lot of sacrifice and love to serve the needy and to be a good human being, which I strive to be.”
The smartest answer among the guys went unrewarded for 23-year-old Pulkeet Javahar who probably went home unlucky for his verbose differentiation between “Intelligence” and “Brilliance.” “Intelligence is a critically analytical cognitive faculty…,” he rattled off. Even during his introduction, the young chap started pretty well before the crowd made him stall with nervousness. The host Neelu quite sweetly told him in the end that he lost the second runner up by a close margin. The 17-year-old cute 5-foot-3-inch tall Ann Anra was also unfortunate to miss the prize but watch out for him in films and on TV. To be fair to the boys, they were spontaneous in their answers and they were rewarded.
Testing their IQ
Twenty-four-year-old Amit Nahar bent to bow down to stage when they announced him as the Chennai Man 2007 for his “Intelligence, to the power of infinity, is brilliance” answer. And 27-year-old Thanuj was declared the first runner-up for his “All people are intelligent, few are brilliant” distinction between intelligence and brilliance. Earlier, his TR-act (T. Rajendran act) brought the roof down. Sanjay Jayaraman, 23, was quite lucky to walk home as the second runner-up with his explanation that “an intelligent person has greater IQ.” Well, that’s as much stating the obvious since IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient.
There were a couple of unfortunate ousters earlier in the evening when Garima Mishra fumbled a rhyme nervously introducing herself, stopped to realise she had forgotten and muttered a not-so-mentionable four letter word on stage and Sonali Shenoy after an impressive introduction, stumbled on stage climbing down a step. Among the men, Agnishwar Anbu, winner of Fa Perfect Body, survived a silly introduction, made up with his intense theatrics-blended dance act, made it to the finals and lost out during the questioning.
The high point of the evening was when Pulkeet and Pooja Amarnath did a high-energy Jhoom Barabar Jhoom duet, and Amit Nahar and sister Chandni Nahar came up with an equally powerhouse performance.
SUDHISH KAMATH
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