Beauty Pageants: Presenting Ms. Future Oscar winner!

In my opinion the Femina Ms. India contests are exercises limited in objective as they are in their creativity. Mind you, I am not of the opinion that women should be shackled or hidden from the public eye, I come from a family of strong independent & successful women myself!
Reading through the list of ambitions that most of the contestants put up, one gets the idea that the apparent purpose of this contest is to provide the traditional notion of a beautiful woman with a platform to stardom. Recent history may well suggest the same. Ever since Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai brought home the double gold in the mid nineties, careers in film seemed almost natural next steps. We are a nation obsessed with glamour and magical realism and in this quest for physically beautiful women with passable acting skills are made the standard bearers of the ideal Indian women.
This is, according to the Ms India website, the aim of the contest: �to look for the most beautiful, talented person who can be an international winner at the contests at Miss World/Universe and Earth.� I needn�t say more, the organisers themselves talk of the self-fulfilling exercise that is a beauty pageant.
A look at the movie Ms. Congeniality reveals how hypocritical the entire process is. Sandra Bullock, on being asked to describe the one wish she has responds: �Harsher punishments for parole violators.� The audience immediately falls silent, boggled by this rather �inappropriate answer. To make up� she adds �� and World Peace!� followed by thunderous applause from a relieved audience. It�s too bad that most of these winners look to find and establish world peace by dancing, in large groups, to random melodies in the middle of the desert!�