BBC highlights Fa Femina Miss India

indian beauty queens have been reigning supreme on the firmament of the universe and world. and as the 37th femina miss india gets underway in hyderabad, the contestants - 26 young women - are being filmed by a bbc crew. "women want to know how to be beautiful and men, of course, enjoy watching beautiful women, so we have an audience already," says the charming nisha pankhania, producer of an hour-long programme, tentatively called jewel in the crown for bbc's channel 4. the versatile nisha, is a university of leeds graduate, does broadcasting with law (!!) and works with bbc radio leeds apart from dabbling in, "some 'silversmithing'" she laughs. "the femina miss india is the best magnifying glass - forum - to show women how to be beautiful. you know, women always says things like, 'oh she is so beautiful', "she has such good skin or legs or hair'... what they don't realise is that it takes a lot of work and effort to be beautiful. you know, the whole no pain, no gain philosophy. i also wanted to high-light typically indian beauty aids like threading and other stuff," says nisha in her clipped english accent. but what made the team of four come to india to make this documentary? "actually when priyanka chopra was over in london for the miss world contest - i just happened to look up and caught her. it set me thinking and i watched the finals. last year i came down to india and watched them rehearse and did a bit of research. i went back and pitched the idea to bbc. after i got the idea approved we began to put a team together and came down here. we've been with the contestants since november 14 and will wind up with the contest." after her last project, a dark documentary called crossfire in kashmir, "where we travelled along both sides of the border," nisha wanted to do something different. "this project is so drastically different from the last one. i wanted to do something fun, upbeat and something that people could actually watch and enjoy." nisha aims to make the hour or hour-and-a-half long programme as involving as possible. "i want people to get to know the girls, like them and root for them - i want to make them feel bad if their favourites don't do well and cheer if they do." and what about her own favourites, "you know, after having spent all this time with these girls - i don't really have a favourite," she says, "at first, we did like some girls more than the others but as we got to know them it was difficult to say who would get the crown. all of them are very good." sudhasmehta@indiatimes.com