(From left) Mayuri chatterjee, Arpita Sinha, Rajkanya Baruah and Poonam Dhal

Huge make-up mirrors placed in one brightly-lit corner, a white background rolled out in the centre with some fur thrown on a chair and a silent zone with cameras rolling at the other end — Reverb, the sports bar at the Princeton Club, resembled a battleground of sorts on Friday morning. The cause: the audio-visual and portfolio shoot of the 10 finalists of Dabur Gulabari Sananda Tilottama 2010.

Fresh and soft was the look for the first series of portfolio shots. “We wanted the girls to look as make-up free as possible,” smiled Nayanika Chatterjee, dressed in a stylish black zipper jacket and bluish green sneakers. Nabin Das, the make-up pro, followed Nayanika’s instructions to the tee. A light base, soft brown eyes, peachy lips with hair falling loosely on the shoulders — the girls looked fresh as daisies. Sandy, the stylist, gave them baby pink halter tops and white hot pants that added to the look.

Look two was sexy with a capital S with sheer shaded tunics in orange, blue, pink, green and yellow playing peek-a-boo with bikini blouses and boy shorts. Smoky eyes, nude glossy lips and lots of body shimmer — the ladies looked bold and beautiful.

If the portfolio shoot was all about getting that perfect smile or that tilt of the head just right, the AV round saw the girls being reduced to a bunch of nerves. Some forgot their lines and some mumbled. With a mentor like Nayanika around, pumping up the confidence quotient was never a problem though.

Perched on the chair with her lau-saag (that her mom made for her) and chicken biryani, she rattled off tips: “When you are taking it easy, you are doing fine”, “keep looking into the camera even when your shot is over”, “take a deep breath”, “don’t stumble”...