Education Is Empowering

At 18, Pankhuri Gidwani won the fbb Femina Miss Grand India 2016 and represented the country at the Miss Grand International 2016 pageant held in Las Vegas. Now she’s back to school for some unfinished business.

- Chirag Mohanty Samal

At 18, Pankhuri Gidwani won the fbb Femina Miss Grand India 2016 and represented the country at the Miss Grand International 2016 pageant held in Las Vegas. Now she’s back to school for some unfinished business, finds Chirag Mohanty Samal Pankhuri Gidwani missed her Class 12 board exams to participate in Miss India. It was a tough decision to make, but it paid off when she was crowned fbb Femina Miss Grand India 2016. The 18-year-old went on to represent the country at Miss Grand International 2016, an event for which she received the best training from experts in the industry. One would assume Bollywood is next, but Gidwani’s priorities are different—she recently took her Class 12 exams and plans to go to college even as she readies for showbiz.

How did you prepare for Miss Grand International 2016? 

The motto of the pageant was ‘Stop the War and Violence,’ so I began researching the theme. I underwent a specialised and rigorous training programme for the pageant that lasted almost eight months. I also got to pick from the best designers’ collections, and I am so grateful to them for that. Through this training, it was like my personality underwent a complete makeover.