Beauty And The Big B

IT may be the most out-of-the-world thing for the Miss World contest. Just as it could be the most significant glamour event to hit the southern metro in a long time. Ninety of the world's most glamorous women descend on your neighbourhood and vie for that most coveted title. And 16 women douse themselves with petrol or kerosene and set themselves afire in an attempt to send the 90 beauties packing home. Bangalore is still trying to grapple with the situation, two weeks after Amitabh Bachchan announced the Karnataka capital as the venue for the "one mega event that will definitely put India on the Global Pathway". But there are signs that the quest for beauty could turn ugly. 

Will the city be able to accommodate the 30,000 visitors apart from the entourages of 90 participants, the media and organisers for Miss World? Will Bangalore roads hold up to the explosion of traffic as the world moves around in the city? What tourist attractions will the polluted Garden City offer to the world? How much more attention does the state government want the overcrowded Silicon City to attract before it can focus attention on its infrastructure? How will an overworked police force tackle the one dozen organisations of cultural fundamentalists opposing the pageant? And most importantly, why Bangalore?

This last question Bachchan answers readily. "Bangalore is a healthy mixture of the developed and traditional India. It is modern, technologically advanced, and the home of thousands of transnationals. It's a leader in this part of the world that wipes out the wrong beliefs of the West (about developing nations)." The London-based Miss World organisation, he says, was looking for another venue to host the pageant after Sun City, South Africa, did the honours for four years in a row. Enter Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd (ABCL), true to its vision of "truly corporatising the entertainment industry in the country". And before one could say Aby Baby, Bachchan descended on the Vidhan Soudha forcing Chief Minister J.H. Patel to abandon midway a discussion on the no-confidence motion against his government to announce the extravaganza that will cost ABCL Rs 8 crore.

Funding the money is the least of ABCL's problems though. More daunting is the sheer logistics of organising the event. From November 4, participants and their entourages will criss-cross the subcontinent from Delhi through Agra, Jaipur and Madras for four days before reaching Ban-galore where they'll pitch their tent for 18 days. Packed within these 22 days are a dozen pageant-related events, numerous rehearsals and social engagements for the participants including a welcome dinner hosted by Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda. The metro will also play host to the entire Bollywood family, the world media and celebrities like Lady Diana, Andre Agassi and Brooke Shields whom Bac-hchan reportedly has personally invited to judge the contest. All sharing the limited hotel accommodation Bangalore will offer.

I don't know why they're doing it here," says a senior sales manager of a Bangalore five-star hotel, requesting anonymity. "Bangalore has the least number of 496 deluxe hotel rooms among all metros and certainly can't take an event of this size. In fact, none of the metros, barring Delhi, have the hotel capacity for such a large number of visitors," he says. According to him, apart from the three deluxe category hotels that account for the 496 rooms, three more five-star hotels have a total of about 700 rooms. Hardly sufficient for the numbers expected to throng Bangalore. While power shortages and other civic amenity problems are not expected to cast their shadow on the diesel-generator-powered extravaganza, security and traffic management pose stiff challenges.

These doubts do little to dampen ABCL's spirit. There's nothing in Sun City, they aver, that Bangalore doesn't have. Says M. Suku, vice-president, ABCL: "Bangalore is in fact better equipped than Sun City. After being the venue for the SAARC summit and the India-Pakistan match, it has got used to hosting such events." A tall claim, considering Sun City is home to just a couple of thousand people, no more than a holiday resort with four luxury hotels and sports facilities. Besides, the venue itself housed only the Miss World contestants and their entourages, while visitors were based in Johannesburg and Pretoria, both two-hours drive away from Sun City.

But more than the logistical problems, it is the protest being raised against the pageant by women and student organisations and by Prof M.D. Nanjundaswamy of the Karnataka State Farmers' Association whose activists ransacked TNCs like Cargill and KFC, that should worry ABCL. Says Dr Jayalakshmi, secretary, All-India Mahila Sanskritik Sanghatana, a front-organisa-tion of the Leftist SUCI: "It's disgraceful and obnoxious to reduce women, or even men for that matter, to mere physical entities, measuring and sizing them at the fag end of the 20th century. We'll organise massive public protests all over the state in October and November which will be strong enough to stop the event." K.N. Shashi-kala, president, Mahila Jagaran, has gone a step further and threatened to commit suicide along with 15 other women to force the cancellation of the pageant ( see box ).

 "It's an additional burden," says city Police Commissioner S.C. Burman whose force is reeling under the strain of making arrangements for Prime Minister Gowda's frequent visits. "The pageant is unlike any other occasion for police management as it mostly attracts fun-loving visitors who can pose problems disrupting normal civic life." While the threat perception and the scope of security arrangements is still being worked out, Burman intends to use commandos from the Rapid Action Force of the state reserve police to form the proximity circle for contestants and provide security.

ABCL, on its part, has already embarked on a damage-control exercise. The motto of the pageant, they say, is "beauty with a purpose" and nearly 50 per cent of the proceeds will be donated to the Spastics Society of India, Bangalore. It may be Bachchan's toughest stunt yet, a test both of his brand equity and the one-year old ABCL's credibility.