The dream lover comes of age

pune: come tuesday and the city, for a change, will play host to not the usual celebrity politicians and bollywood starlets but to a host of tall, handsome men. girls, are you listening? as many as 43 of these hunks will hit the ramp here on november 6 to vie for a place in the finals of the coveted grasim mr india title, scheduled to be held in bangalore on february 23 next year.and this time around, the profile of these future bikram salujas, rakesh bapats and aryan vaids need not conform to the usual age and height demands as the organisers have relaxed both criteria. therefore, you could well expect your 'dream lover' to be someone pushing 30 and well out of the big b league in terms of height. the age and height relaxations have definitely pushed up the number of entries. last year, the contest had attracted just 8,000 entries while this year, the eighth version of the grasim mr india pageant has attracted a record 13,875 entries! says contest director anshuman swami, "men usually come into their prime in their late '20s. the average height of men in our sub-continent is around 5 ft, nine inches. hence a representation was made and the height criterion was reduced to 5 ft 10 inches. the age group was also revised to 18-30." of the 13,000 odd entries, 752 were shortlisted for the preliminary round. "the northern region topped with 380 contestants qualifying for the preliminaries, followed by the western region with 252, southern region with 69 and eastern region with 59," he adds. with a number of non-maharashtrians coming to pune for education, the number of entries from pune is increasing at a remarkable rate, adds mr swami. the success of puneite rakesh bapat two years ago also triggered off interest in the contest. "the regional round in pune will, however, be a more closed-door affair. each contestant will be given about two minutes to come on the ramp in his swimming trunks. questions are asked to check his speech, mannerisms, nervousness, body language and attitude. the contestants will be judged by a core committee," mr swami explained. the winner of the contest stands to gain a neat rs 3 lakh, to say nothing of a chance to represent india in world pageants, modelling assignments and a possible shot at filmdom. the two runners-up will go home richer by rs 1 lakh and rs 50,000 respectively.