Miss Sumi 2010

After 4 days of waking up early to spend 5-6 hours on the road and in the sky, I finally arrived in Zunheboto, Nagaland around 1.30pm on the 13th of November with a small dent in my head - life is tough when you can fall asleep in any moving vehicle, including a crowded sumo travelling on a winding and bumpy road. (A sumo is a term commonly used across the NE for a 4WD used to ferry people from town to town.) Despite my best efforts, I could not remain awake long enough to prevent my skull from knocking against the window. This is in stark contrast to my first time travelling down this road last February when I was absolutely terrified of everything, from the local police to the local militant factions.

After being treated to some tea and and ahuna, the name given to rice cooked in bamboo during the Sumi month of Ahuna, when the post-harvest festival Ahuna is celebrated - my principal reason for coming to Zunheboto at this time of year - I was asked if I wanted to attend the Miss Sumi 2010 beauty pageant later that afternoon. Having seen videos of a Miss Nagaland beauty pageant at the anthropological museum in Zurich back in December 2008, I was keen to attend despite my fatigue.

After squeezing through the Zunheboto town hall doors with our tickets, my hosts and I had to sit through a number of speeches thanking the numerous donors and 'sponsorers' (sic) before the actual pageant began.

It was pretty normal as pageants come. There was the ethnic costume round, the 'casual' round where the girls presumably chose their own 'modern' outfits, and the 'designer' round where they got to model outfits made by a local designer. The girls also had to introduce themselves and answers a few questions: two in English and one in Sumi.

My favourite for the evening was contestant 10, because she - wait for it - had recently completed an MA in Linguistics.

Much of the commentary seemed to focus on 'women's empowerment' and using this as a platform for that. However, as with most beauty pageants that claim to do so, I couldn't help but notice the large number of males in the audience oggling and catcalling at the participants, especially when they were in 'ethnic cosutme'.

The other thing I found slightly disturbing - the organisers clearly have never seen Little Miss Sunshine - was a performance by little girls from the local Montesorri school, dancing to the song "Shut Up and Bounce" from the Bollywood film Dostana.





I'm really sure if people quite understood the not-so-subtle subtext to that song:
"I feel it... I need it... Baby we can do it all night".

Add that to the little cosutmes the girls were in, and I can't imagine how parents in the West (except maybe in America) would ever approve of such a performance. But it clearly didn't seem to phaze the audience here, and even when I show the video to people here, everyone seems to think it's just a very cute performance.

I was really grateful to be able to attend the event, especially given that tickets cost 500 Rs to admit two. There were some complaints about the sound operators this year, especially when they stuffed up the actual Ahuna festival sound the following two days. But who would've thought, I actually got to attend a beauty pageant in Nagaland.

And of course, the winners for the evening (with Miss Sumi 2010 right in the middle)