Your background doesn’t matter, it is who you become: Miss India World 2023 Nandini Gupta

 

 

AS THE daughter of a farmer and a homemaker, Miss India World 2023 Nandini Gupta says she never let her background come in the way of her childhood dream of participating in a beauty pageant. Gupta, 19, was announced the winner on Saturday night in Imphal, Manipur, where she beat out competition from 29 other contestants.

The newly-crowned Miss India World said she lived a simple life in Kota, Rajasthan, before moving to Mumbai to study business management at Lala Lajpatrai College. In Mumbai, the former Miss Rajasthan started preparing for the Miss India World pageant alongside her studies.

“My father is a farmer, my mother is a homemaker and she helps him too. Your background doesn’t matter, it is who you become. No matter where you come from, life is a journey... That’s why I polished myself in such a way that it made me determined and ambitious,” she told PTI in an interview post her win. Gupta remembers being mesmerised by former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan while watching “Devdas” at a young age. That was the beginning of the dream to win a beauty pageant, she said, crediting her mother for inspiring her at the age of 10.

“The crown attracted me. When I saw it in a newspaper, I was like, ‘How do we get this?’ My mother was watching ‘Devdas’ on DVD, I was mesmerised looking at Aishwarya’s beauty, and I asked my mother, ‘Who is she?’ She said, ‘She is Miss World’. I was like ‘How do you become that?’ and when she told me about it, I wanted to become one,” Gupta said.