With a wide smile, sparkling eyes and a well-rehearsed demeanour, 21-year-old Harnaaz Sandhu wore the crown of Miss Universe recently. Millions of Indians celebrated the victory on social media, others were grumpy and made fun of her speculated future- a Bollywood starlet dancing around the trees. The moment provided a trigger for certain discussions to emerge from hibernation. A reputed English language newspaper and a very famous fashion magazine carried articles where women writers stated that in today’s day and time, beauty pageants have lost relevance. The writers argued that these competitions uphold unrealistic standards of beauty and are unrelated to the physical diversity of women’s bodies. It is not possible to disagree with these critical voices and the underlying concerns of these arguments point to some very pertinent questions around the conceptualizations of beauty and contests. However, this criticism is somewhat traditional and its roots are traced back to the vigorous feminist protests organised against Miss America contest in 1968 followed by the Miss World competition in London in 1970.