If I had been the judge I would have thrown the book at Priyanka Chopra, the Miss India.

She met each of Jerry Springer's questions with an elaborate answer peppered with long and winding words, which included a combination of the following..."expectation, world at my meet, stepping stone to success, woman-power, beautiful country, culture, tradition"... as if she had mugged up a book titled "Correct Answers to Miss World Interview Questions" and was regurgitating them on cue. She was irritatingly confident and totally lacking in spontaneity. And, if you closed your eyes, she could have been anyone...Yukta, Diana, Lara...the same answers, the same words, just more irritating.

In contrast, Miss Ukraine was genuinely funny. When Jerry Springer asked her what she thought she would be 10 years from now, she said, "27 years". That was spontaneous and required guts. In contrast, Priyanka would have said "Ten years from now, I will be in a position to have done good for my country, by representing it in various forums and highlighting our tradition and culture, which is the oldest and most versatile in the world (dancing around trees half naked in Hindi films). (Pause for applause...). I will have served the country by being an ambassador of peace and harmony (and watches and clothes and perfumes for which I will be paid tons of money)."

I didn't bother about the rest of the contest. But I did hear about the Mother Theresa boo-boo; when she was asked, which living person she would like to emulate, she answered on cue, "Mother Theresa".

Seriously, who do you think sounds more convincing? Miss Kenya, who said that Mariah Carey was her role model (honest), or Miss India who said that Mother Theresa was her role model (false). As with most things in our country, we are dishonest and untruthful even in these contests, knowing fully well that the Western world does not understand the deception behind the use of Mother Theresa's name. Mother Theresa, my foot; I am sure that the contestants would run miles away if a leper came even six feet near them, forget about working with the Missionaries of Charity.

When Aishwarya and Sushmita won their crowns respectively, it was a unique situation. After Reita Faria in 1966, no Indian had won a Miss World or Miss Universe title and it felt good. Since then however, the Femina people have started mass producing these winners, who all look, talk and behave in the same unnatural and hypocritical manner.

Frankly the real winners are Femina and all the people who handle various aspects of the contestants' grooming. An industry that works with clockwork precision with the fashion designers designing their clothes, the dental surgeon working on their teeth, the body specialist fine tuning their diets and exercise schedules and the diction specialist teaching them how to answer and what to answer. I suspect that just like for the IIT-JEE and medical CAT exams, they probably go through all possible questions that can be asked along with the expected answers. As with these entrance exams, we have "cracked" the system of the Miss World and Miss Universe contests and so we keep winning.

At the end of it all though, it's a pity. After becoming Miss Worlds and Miss Universes most of them by and large eventually gravitate into the film and glamour industry...because they have become good for nothing else.