The organization of Femina Miss India recently announced that the 2020 edition will be conducted virtually and the organization is working on the new and improvised way of conducting the pageant. The decision to go virtual was due to the scare of coronavirus in the country. The winner will succeed Femina Miss India 2019 Suman Ratan Rao for the title who was adjudged as the second runner-up at Miss World 2019.
With the competition yet to begin, the list is being prepared for the potential candidates for the competition and one of the candidates that has caught our attention is Amanda Vas as she seems like a potential candidate to represent India at Miss World 2020 stage.
Hailing from Goa, Amanda is 20-years-old and stands 185 cm tall and is extremely passionate about completing her graduation in biotechnology from Chowgule College and is looking forward to doing her MSc in Biotechnology. The diva has explained that her parents have always been the biggest encouragement and have helped her in her decision making without over-shadowing her.
Amanda is not new to the world of pageantry she was adjudged as the first runner-up of The Great Pageant Community which is an online pageant where girls can participate from the comfort of their home. The girls are trained online and the top three go for the Grand Finale to either Mumbai, Pune, or another place to get trained under Alesia Raut and Anjali Raut at Cocoaberry Talent and Academy. She was highly appreciated for her performance and thus was adjudged as the first runner-up at the end of the competition. She is also a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and has represented the college in basketball at the district level.
The diva explains that her strength is her positive attitude towards doing things and exploring them with the same enthusiasm. She loves to venture out in the world which helps her to understand her strength and weakness. Talking about her experience at TGPC competition, Amanda explained that it was one of the best experience of her life as she it was “a very informative experience as I discovered various pageants I could participate in, interacted with many girls my age with a common goal and most importantly, I became conscious of the way I spoke and walked.”
Amanda aspires to be a full-time model but wants to complete her education first as she feels that one needs to have a balance of both and a person with a degree is always respected. Just like a strong, confident, and focused woman she is, she looks up to women who have a combination of ‘Beauty with Brains’ and women who are successful in their academics. One such woman is her mother for her who is a History graduate and the reason why Amanda is so keen on getting her degree too. “Another person I look up to is Lady Diana because in spite of having all the luxury she was always simple and lived a very charitable life,” she added.
The diva feels that modeling or beauty pageants have helped her to build up the confidence and self-worth which was missing while she was growing up. Modeling helped her to focus on taking care of herself in terms of physique, skin, hair, along with her gesture and attitude. She explained that while she was training under TGPC she started to see the difference in the way she was walking and talking which gave her a lot of confidence and she was sure that that’s something she wants in her life 10 years from now.
Amanda has always looked up to people who are concerned about the environment. Greta Thunberg, advocate Afroz Shah and Leonardo di Caprio are a few. She has also taken part in activities to better the environment like planting trees in her college and participating in a beach cleaning drive. Seeing the beach dirty is very heart-breaking to Amanda and her family who lives just two minutes from the beaches of Goa and she explained that we must take into consideration even the animals who live on the beach the dogs. The one advice she would like to give people is to finish what you start. “When you just start, it’s not going to be easy, but don’t stop doing it. One year from now you are going to be so much better at it,” adds Amanda.
Amanda is strong, confident, determined to mark her standing at the beauty pageant world and if she decides to participate, she could be a strong contender for the title. Miss Grand International 2019 Shivani Jadhav and Miss United Continents 2019 Shreya Shanker will also pass on their crowns.