MY RENDEZVOUS WITH MISS DIMAPUR 2006 ASPIRANTS
Right after graduation in the summer of 2006, I worked as a reporter for ‘The Morung Express’ Newspaper. Hold on! Do you have any idea what hairstyle I use to carry during the entire internship? I told the hairstylist to give me Meg Ryan look (Her ‘You’ve got the mail’ hairstyle) but ended up looking like Thakur of Sholay. Half of the day, I had to handle the side fringes by shaking my head from right to left. Anyway, I loved the office, my favourite person in the office was the Editor with whom I share my surname; talented and handsome; he looks like Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother (Okay, I am exaggerating to make a point), but what I really liked about him was his strategy to assign me in the most interesting of tasks. Once, he casually said that a reporter is invited by some society for some event…cannot remember the exact words. As I was the only reporter present in the office that hour, I was sent to cover the event, details of which I was completely unaware of. The event was held at Hotel Saramati (If there is 4 Seasons in Hong Kong then there is Saramati in Nagaland). I sat in the lobby until a guy with his ‘I know it all, I am Ryan Seacrest and who are you? Attitude’ came to greet me; by the way, he was the coordinator of the event. I was ushered into a room where these twelve or more beautiful ladies were seated, if Frida Kahlo was alive then she could have easily picked one for her but unlike her I was clueless. That guy made attention clap to announce, “Listen, ladies, we have a reporter from Morung Express, she is going to take your interview but before that let’s have a tea break.” I wondered why the tea break session came in between. Like a slow learner with a speed pace, I realised that I was indeed going to interview Miss Dimapur 2006 aspirants. During the tea break, there were more smiles than conservations. They looked at me, I looked at them, I smiled, they smiled, I was getting bored and when I get bored, I misbehave. I took the last sip with a cocky smile, well, I was totally unprepared, but my mischievous mind was not, I was ready with the questions and those questions could blow their mind. I was not going to ask them, who among them first lost her virginity? or how would they react if their butt augmentation went wrong? Or did they ever got the intuition that they might be Queen Esther incarnate; born to save their race? Well, because I am naughty not creepy (Hear that in a British accent). In most of the beauty contest questions the significant word is ‘or’ like ‘beauty or brains’, ‘health or wealth’, ‘gobi or cabbage’, oops, they mean the same thing. I questioned them more on politics less on what was required, wait a minute, I was doing no bakwas, no nonsense business, a beauty contest is also politics, politics of beauty, politics of the body, and you know better. I asked them whether India was a unitary or a federal country; I questioned them whom would they like to prefer as the 'First Female President of U.S.' Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice (What a prediction! In 2008, Ms.Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination), and lots. I spoke pretty fast, and each time I repeated the questions their eyes spoke out, ‘Oh! So you think you are Oprah Winfrey or something?’ Finally, when it was over, the coordinator came, thanked me, and dragged me out. Next day, the newspaper carried the story that indeed these ladies were blended with beauty and brain and Dimapur is delighted to be represented by them; my job was to write….a positive feedback. Years later, I met the coordinator, my first question was, “Why did you drag me out that day?” the reply came, “Do you have any idea what were you asking?”, I smiled and replied back, “Obviously, not cleavages.”
