Story of resilience & lasting legacy of first Miss India

It was a 45-minute interview that helped select the first Miss India in 1964, not a fanfare-echoing pageant.

- Faheem Ruhani

For her part, the chosen one, 19-year-old model Meher Mistry, was not thinking about the fact that she was now an indelible part of Indian history. Far from it. She was terrified. The prospect of travelling abroad alone almost made her pull out of the whole affair. "It was like being thrown into the deep end of the pool and not knowing how to swim," recalls Meher.

If that was not enough, she had to prepare for the international pageants all by herself. "I had to train myself, I did not have a team. How I'm going to walk, what I'm going to talk about, how I will behave and the concept of what a beauty queen should be," says Meher.