Taapsee Pannu recalls humiliating Miss India experience

Before she became an actor, Taapsee Pannu tried modelling for a few years. During her time as a student, she even tried her luck at the Miss India pageant, where she made it to the top 28. But the experience was not a pleasant one for the actor, as she recalled how there was much favoritism at the contest and during the trial phase, she was humiliated by a designer, who told her that she should not have been there.

The actor remembered that she was only one of three girls that had been chosen from Delhi, and she had to go up against professional models. Compared to them, she was an amateur as she had only done photoshoots and had not appeared in television ads or walked the ramp till then.

In an interview with The Lallantop, Taapsee spoke about her experience during the beauty pageant. She said, “I realised during the ‘grooming period’ that this wasn’t something I could do. They’d make us walk, they taught us how to smile. [Designer] Hemant Trivedi used to be the expert teacher at the time, and he humiliated me. He said, ‘If it was in my hand, you would have never been in the top 28.’”

Later at the wrap party, she knew that she was ‘walking on thin ice’. She added, “There was a lot of favouritism happening there. They were making people sign contracts that strictly stipulated that contestants would have to give 30 percent of all their earnings for three years to the pageant. When it was over, we went for an afterparty, the national director was there, and he wished me good luck for the future very courteously. I don’t know what took over me, but I told him, ‘Sir, take it from me in writing, you’re not getting the crown back’.”

During her time at the pageant, Taapsee picked up two titles, Miss Fresh Face and Miss Beautiful Skin. She made her acting debut in 2010 with the Telugu film Jhummandi Naadam. In 2013, she made her Hindi debut with David Dhawan’s remake of the 1981 comedy of the same name with Chashme Baddoor.