BY LOPA D CHOWDHURY
Pictures courtesy Kirti Photography

Movina Nagarajan was crowned Ms India Georgia 2006 at a glittering ceremony held at the Gwinnett Performing Arts Center on June 22nd. Sulochana Surapu won the Ms Teen India Georgia 2006 title. Both winners also won the Ms Talent titles. The annual beauty pageant was organized by the India American Cultural Association (IACA).

Nina Talukdar and Ezra Gilani were named Ms India Georgia first and second runner-up respectively, while Meghan Purohit and Natasha Vasandani made it to first and second runner-up positions in the Ms Teen India Georgia segment. 

There were 25 participants in all this year- 13 in the Ms India GA contest, and 12 in the Ms Teen India GA contest. The judges for the event included Mark Premji, Samera Sheikh, Arti Patel, Jighnasa Patel, Samir Bajaj, Surinder Bedi, and Kanan Humphrey.

The evening began with a welcome address by IACA president Tushar Sanghvi, who thanked those who had put in their best efforts to make the show a success. “Each year, the numbers of participants in the beauty pageant are increasing,” he said. Sanghvi thanked the media for its support. He then introduced the two emcees for the evening, Parijat Chandra & Suvrat Bhargave. Parijat was the chief coordinator of the pageant.
Ravi Dattagupta and Rajat Dhir escorted all the participants to the stage.

Atlanta’s popular group ‘Silent Killer’ delighted the audience with their dance performances that were set to popular numbers. 

The Ms. India Georgia contest included an ‘evening gown segment’ and a ‘talent segment’ whereas the Ms. Teen India Georgia had the ‘evening gown segment’ only. The cumulative judging was based on the participant’s eye contact, smile, posture and talent. 

The audience cheered the participants as they came up on stage in their glittering evening Indian outfits and introduced themselves. The choreography and music synchronization were first grade.

In the second half of the program, students from Kruti Dance Academy performed a group dance choreographed by Dina Seth. Emcee Parijat later thanked Seth for the beautiful performance.

The top five finalists chosen from the Ms. Teen India segment were Sulochona, Meghan, Natasha, Akanksha and Anusha. The top fives from the Ms. India Georgia were Movina, Deepti, Divya, Nina and Ezrah. Each contestant from both the segments had to go through a grilling ‘Questions and Answers’ round. The Q & A was the most crucial round, where the finalists were judged for quality, presentation, posture and impromptu intelligence.

The judges shot questions at the finalists, who had 90 seconds to answer!
The Q&A round led to a nail biting waiting period when the votes were counted. The audience waited with bated breath as the names of the winners were announced.

The winners of both contests, Movina and Sulochana also won the Ms Talent titles. The Ms. Congeniality title was conferred on Divya Purohit, Ms. Beautiful smile on Noor Kapur & Ms. Photogenic on Natasha Vasandani. 

The winner of last year’s Ms India GA Nikhat Nazarali came up on stage to hand over her crown to the new winner. Meenakshi Bhatia presented sashes to all the winners. Tushar Sanghvi presented certificates to all the participants and special recognitions to Parijat Chandra and Meenakshi Bhatia for their outstanding work. He also presented flower bouquets to Dina Seth, Prem Rahman & Meghna Nagarajan as tokens of appreciation.