When we talk about beauty pageants in India, the first and foremost term that come into our mind is ‘Miss India’. For decades together, we almost forgot that pageants could go beyond the prefix of ‘Miss’. In fact, in 90s and early 2000s, if a girl realized that she wants to pursue pageantry but has crossed the age limit or is married off before she develops the mere thought of participation into beauty pageants, the date of her fate had already expired. There existed pageants for married women as well in the past, but with bare minimum exposure. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that it was one of the most neglected areas of pageantry. People almost didn’t know that there were reputed and reliable platforms that could help the aspiring married women till late 2010s.

However, having social media handy and word of mouth doing the best publicity, it became too easy for the “Mrs” category to develop its own limelight and gain the momentum into the market of beauty industry in this decade. As the number of aspiring contestants increased, the number of pageant creators increased too. This led to the dilemma amongst women as to which pageant is worth participating and which pageants should be avoided at any cost. As a matter of fact, there are just few countable pageants for married women that has got global trust and it’s not easy to separate them out from the bunch of 1000s fishes in the sea. If we had to make our list of pageants for Mrs Category, the pageant creator that would top our list would be ‘DIVA Pageants’.

DIVA Pageants is mother brand that houses 3 beauty pageants for married women, namely
Mrs. India-Empress of the Nation
Mrs. West India- Empress of West India
Mrs. Maharashtra-Empress of Maharastra

The aforementioned pageants under DIVA has become synonymous to women empowerment in the field of pageantry for the ladies who didn’t have a chance to participate in beauty pageants when they were single, or for someone who just wants to make her own identity and use the platform to voice out her opinions on bigger scale and to the wider audience. The women who participate in Diva Pageants shine almost instantly due to the various opportunities that come their way. These pageants are being managed by a very strong and bold personality Anjana Mascarenhas, hailing from Pune. She started her career as a fashion designer through her own boutique in 1998 on MG Road-Pune, and later took a pageant course from an academy in USA in 2013. She experienced pageantry for the very first time in 2015, by being a finalist herself in a Mrs India Pageant and this was probably her first step to bigger stardom in life, that was creating her own platform to empower a lot more women and allow them to live a life by being addressed as a Queen, something that is seen with respect in the society.

Unlike most beauty pageants owners in India, Anjana has achieved multiple milestones where she has prepared her winners for international pageants and have won quite many of them. Besides that, she also helped her own finalists and winners in growing to become entrepreneurs on their own. In fact, would you believe if we say she helped her girls create their own beauty pageants? Anjana has!!! A person can only empower another person when she is confident of her own calibre and capabilities and Anjana is leading this statement by real life example. She helped her girls create pageants like Face of Mumbai (Lakshmi Sona), Queen of South Mumbai (Prachi Mhatre), Queen of South India (Simran Godhwani) etc. She is also a supporting partner of an event company WE BE Events started by Vrinda Bhandari where she gave her an insight and connects to make her events grander and profitable. Many of her previous winners come back to her to be a part of her events by taking up responsibilities of pageant co-ordinator, back stage co-ordinators, PR co-ordinators and faculty in her pageant workshops. The production quality that Diva Pageants has got in the finale is a delight to watch. The stage design, the presence of A-listed celebrity, the walk of girls in famous designers’ dresses and focus on finding a talent which has potential of shining like bright star in future is what makes this pageant worth participating. Diva Pageants’ creations have been named as top pageants by multiple media outlets time and again.

The winners of Diva Pageants have come from varied field, be it doctor, be it restaurant owner, be it aspiring model, be it a fashion designer or a home-maker. This gives a right signal to every future aspirant that you have all the equal chance to win this pageant if you give it your all, irrespective of where you come from. Anjana has led the pageant industry in a new good direction where the winners do get to experience a complete transformation under her guidance and expertise. She owns the national franchise of pageants like Mrs. Universe, Queen of the World, Mrs Icon World, Lady Star of the Universe. The ladies who experienced the international exposure through the medium of these pageants, have come back to India with bigger achievements, once in a lifetime experience and a bag full of learnings. This helped them in pursuing their own area of interest as they found the new horizon in their vision.

Anjana had created her pageants with a vision to provide a platform of international standards because women back in last decade had very limited options to participate in good pageants after getting married and looking at the growth curve of her brand, we surely feel that Anjana has already reached a point where matching upto her benchmark is going to be an uphill task for anyone to come in near future. She is strongly supported by her husband Karl Mascarenhas who is also a vital part of Diva Pageants as a mentor and organiser. If you too wish to be a part of Diva Pageants, head on to DIVA PAGEANTS WEBSITE [Click Here].