JOIN USSen and the art of sensibility
At the moment, though, there is an entrepreneur emerging who sees no pauses or full stops on her way. Her company Tantra Entertainment Pvt Ltd, last year, got the franchise for ‘I Am She’, the official preliminary to the ‘Miss Universe’ pageant. Sushmita admits her responsibilities have grown manifold since then.
And now in its second year, it has strived to break away from the run-of-the-mill beauty contests while she prefers to call it more of a concept rather than a contest.
But for Sushmita, this is also a time for some recollection and where it all began. “It has been one journey for me, one which began 18 years ago when I won the ‘Miss Universe’.
My life has been destined and I came into the film industry with no clue about acting. Like a sponge, I soaked in everything, learning the art in the process,” she says.
As it turned out, being an entrepreneur has also been a path of discovery for her. “It is a completely different ball game, I am on the other side of the table. And by that, I mean creating my own brand — the brand building exercise. It was a huge responsibility and I was sitting on a ticking bomb.”
“I have been emotionally attached to ‘Miss Universe’,” she goes on. That for obvious reasons indeed. And she doesn’t forget to spell out her own notions about the importance of victory. And how essential it was to see the country as a winner. “We as Indians love winning. There is a huge factor of bringing glory to the country.”
And as an afterthought adds, “There’s so much poverty and pain around us and which is why we turn exclusively towards cricket and movies...”
But haven’t these beauty contests worn out and how different can ‘I Am She’ be? “It goes beyond superficiality. It does not constrain itself to any ‘Miss Something’. It’s for people for all shapes and sizes, is generic and has broken all language barriers. It has a format that allows the contestants to speak the language of their choice. We have interpreters,” she says.
So in her interpretation of the contest, the illusion of perfection is almost absent. Most importantly, she says, “The ultimate aim is not the promise of a role in Bollywood for the winners. But scholarships to study further.” Her excursions into different arenas have only made her self-sufficient. Looking ahead, she avers, “As an actor you learn to play parts. Everything is real for the moment. And being an entrepreneur is just that for me.
Whether it turns out to be a hit or not will have to be seen.”