The winners of Sananda Tilottama 2006. File picture

Guwahati, May 6: The ethereal beauty of Helen, for whom “a thousand ships” were launched, is considered the ultimate symbol of beauty even to this day.

The Northeast prelims of the Sananda Tilottama 2008 — the biggest beauty pageant in eastern India — will see a thousand aspiring Helens strutting their stuff to impress the judges and book a ticket to the mega finals.

The Northeast prelims of the beauty pageant will be held at the Landmark Hotel in Guwahati on Saturday, and is expected to draw the regions’ finest aspiring models and new faces for a dash of glitz and glamour.

The finals will be held at the ITC Sonar Bangla in Calcutta on June 21.

For the record, past winners of this coveted beauty pageant include Bollywood stars like Bipasha Basu, Celina Jaitley and Koena Mitra.

The performances of the youngsters from the Northeast has been impressive — last year Karisma Pradhan from Gangtok had cat-walked her way to instant stardom.

In 2006, Delphine Marbaniang, Zodiki Darkin and Rochelle Zochuani Darkin had swept the sub-contests, while Priyanka Laurembaum went home with the runner-up title.

“If not anything else, the Sananda Tilottama crown last year, I believe, changed the way people in the rest of the country looks at people from the Northeast. The stereotyped view of anyone who belongs to the Northeast is going away. That I have landed many modelling contracts is an added bonus,” Karisma Pradhan said.

Comparing her win to that of Indian Idol III champion Prashant Tamang, she said more and more youngsters are finding their place into modelling “now that we have the right platforms to showcase our talents”.

Fashion guru Dipankar Kashyap, who is also one of the judges for the Northeast prelims, said, “The Sananda Tilottama contest is now a stepping stone for aspiring models and actresses to reach the national scenario. Just look at the number of girls from Calcutta who has made it big in Bollywood. Being groomed by someone like Noyonika Chatterjee matters a lot.”

The other judges are designer and choreographer Prashantt Ghosh, designer Nandini Baruva Jajodia, who was the second runner-up in the Gladrags Mrs India 2007, and former model and beautician Jhula Baruah.

“Like other years, we have got an enormous response this year too from the Northeast with entries pouring in. Last year, of the hundreds of entries, we had screened the girls down to 50 contestants to take part in the Northeast prelims held in Shillong. And then four were selected to be among the 20 for the mega finals,” an organiser said.

The final contestants will be groomed by top model Noyonika Chatterjee for a month. And when the finals are over, the nation will have a new face to steal the hearts of the men and launch a thousand products.