Beauty queens light up the night in Hyderabad

After 10 days of grooming, grilling and getting gorgeous, three of the final 20 contestants were crowned the queens of the I Am She 2012 beauty pageant finale early Saturday morning at the Leonia Holistic resort in the city.

Urvashi Hirautela from Kotdwar (Uttarkand), Shilpa Singh from Mumbai and Arlette Grao from Chennai were  crowned I Am She Miss Universe India, I Am She first runner up and I Am She second runner up respectively. Going through a nerve-wracking two-and-a-half hours, the ladies survived a swim-suit round and two rounds of a question-answer session with the panel of judges that included British Deputy High Commissioner Hyderabad, Richard Hyde, Group Sales Director at Instituto Marangoni, Dario Cattaneo, Olympic bronze medalist Mary Kom, fashion designer Neeta Lulla, actor Harman Baweja, model-turned actress Mugda Godse and cinematographer Santhosh Sivan, to make it to the top five.

Hyderabad’s own Aneesha Chowdhary along with Dipna Patel were the other two top five finalists who lost out at the last minute. Besides the top three slots, five of the 20 contestants were crowned with various titles during the sub-contests. Neha Murali won I Am Voice, while Gurbani Chopra was crowned I Am Congenial. Second runner up Arlette Grao was conferred with I Am Spirit, Miss Universe India while Hirautela was crowned I Am Photogenic, and top five finalist Dipana Patel bagged the I Am Fit title.

Judges had their moments with the contestants during the Q&A, with questions like, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?”, “How best to propose to a guy?” and “Three things about India that the one would tell a foreigner.” The second Q&A round was a common question to all top five finalists asking them to list out three things they had learnt during the pageant that would help them clinch an international title.

I Am She founder-president Sushmita Sen summed the experience best when she said, “To go beyond, one must go through it first.” Present along with her two daughters, she proudly presented the winners at the end of the pageant. Former I Am She winners, Tanvi Singla who was the first runner up at the Miss Asia Pacific 2011, Parul Duggal who was the first runner up at Miss Globe International 2011 and Himangini Singh Yadu who won Miss Asia Pacific 2012 crowned Grao, Singh and Hirautela respectively.

The contestants will represent India at the International beauty pageants this year with Hirautela all set to represent the country at the Miss Universe pageant this December.