Participants at the last year’s Sananda Tilottama contest held in Calcutta walk down the ramp.

If you are a young lady, between 16 and 24 years of age and fancy your chances as a model or an actor, be sure to be at Jamshedpur on Sunday, April 15. The magic doors could well open for you...

That is the day when the biggest beauty pageant in eastern India arrives at the steel city for preliminary selection for the finals of Sananda Tilottama.

Some of the previous winners of the pageant promoted by Sananda, the women’s magazine and a sister publication of The Telegraph, happen to be Bipasha Basu, Celina Jaitley and Koena Mitra.

In its continuing quest to discover the best and the brightest in the region, the pageant held preliminary rounds in Guwahati last year and received an overwhelming response. It now arrives in Jamshedpur and Shillong after establishing itself as a major platform for launching supermodels, beauty queens and film stars. Sananda Tilottama has always been associated with the biggest and best names in fashion from Ritu Kumar to Sabyasachi Mukherjee to retail brands like Westside. Grooming of the 20 finalists this year will be done, for the second year running, by Nayanika Chatterjee. Judges in the past have included the likes of Sabyasachi, Sam Balsara, Rekha, Tina Ambani, Ravi Shastri and Gautam Singhania to name a few. Women from both Bihar and Jharkhand will be eligible for the screening at Jamshedpur.

While entry forms and details will be available at The Telegraph offices at Jamshedpur, Ranchi and Patna, those who fail to collect the forms can arrive at Jamshedpur on the morning of April 15 and report to the TT office at 10 am. 2007 sees Dabur Gulabari Sananda Tilottama in association with Ever Yuth and Seagrams Blenders Magical Nights celebrating 11 years of beauty.

The most glamourous women will be vying for titles such as Miss Beautiful Eyes, Vatika Shampoo Miss Beautiful Hair, VLCC Miss Perfect 10, among other categories.

So, while the pageant adds a dash of glitz and glamour to Jamshedpur, it is time for all the wannabe Tanushree Dattas and Monikanganas to strut their stuff on the catwalk.