Ms. America, Nina Davaluri, the first Ms. America of Indian descent, was in Houston recently and made an appearance at Macys.
The desi hordes turned up of course, moi included :-). Well, she really is very pretty, poised and well-spoken as she looks on television, and appears to have a good, strong head on her shoulders too from the way she spoke.
She plugged her twitter account, her clothes sponsor, and spoke about the challenges she faced, her experience with racism post-win, and how she got interested in the beauty competition in the first place. On a specific question, she also spoke of her faith Hinduism. She has, she said, won $92,000 of scholarship money from competing in various beauty competitions, and plans to use it to get her MBA in the future. A great role model for desi girls growing up in the US (I lapse into desi mommy mode)!
Her appearance was flanked before and after by dance performances (on Bollywood songs) by dancers of the Rhythm India School. The desi population in Houston is large, but it was still surreal to be standing in the Michael Kors section of Macys, and listen to the sounds of “Lungi Dance” wafting over into the general melee.
