Pageant winners euphoric about representing India internationally

Mumbai, Apr 11 (UNI) After having been crowned winners of the beauty pageant, Pantaloon Femina Miss India World 2007 Sarah Jane-Dias, Miss India Universe 2007 Puja Gupta and Miss India Earth 2007 Pooja Chitgopekar will soon start taking lessons in grooming, etiquette, diction, diet and other finer details to help bring laurels to India in the Miss World, Miss Universe and Miss Earth pageants respectively.

The trio won the crowns at a glittering function held here on Sunday.

Miss India World 2007 Sarah Jane is already feeling the heat when she says ''Winning the crown entails a lot of responsibility. There is stress to the point where I feel 'will I be able to live up to the expectations?''' She says she will spread awareness about two issues that concern her the most - global warming and imparting sex education to kids.

A singer herself, Sarah wants to cut an album and also do films.

''Whether I do Hollywood or Bollywood does not matter,'' she says as a mater of fact.

She counts Aretha Franklin among her models. ''I like Aretha Franklin because I am a singer.'' She says Sushmita Sen is another role model she looks up to. ''Sushmita is a complete woman. She won the crown, adopted a baby, is a fabulous mother and her presence is irreplaceable.'' Miss India Universe 2007, Puja Gupta says all of them were winners in their own right. ''There are no runners-up. We are all winners,'' she says.

Pursuing a course in Creative Writing from New York, Gupta is not dogged by the fact that her predecessors Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra won their respective awards quite some time back. ''We will surely make it. This is just the starting point,'' says the girl from Delhi.

An aspiring pediatrician and winner of Miss India Earth, Pooja Chitgopekar, currently in the fourth year of her MBBS studies at University of Auckland, says she has put her studies on hold for the time being.

When I told my professors that I was participating in the contest, they were amused she says. ''I want to major in pediatrics as I love kids'' Fashion and glamour have not been new to this beauty. She had previously participated in the Miss India New Zealand contest in 2002 and was also adjudged the first runner-up in Miss India Worldwide in 2003. ''I was familiar with the contests and was asked to submit my portfolio which I did. I got through the preliminaries and here I am with the crown.

With this success, she says it will be easier for her to meet Sudha Murthy, whose work she admires the most. ''After winning the crown, meeting Sudha Murthy will be easy.'' She will use the Miss India platform to address issues like HIV and organ donation, Each of the winners are quite upbeat about the achievement and promise ''to work very hard and bring crowns back to India.'' UNI