Mumbai, Nov. 20 :    Mumbai, Nov. 20:  Sorry Calcutta, here's bad news. The ramp Bipasha Basu walked to become supermodel not so long ago had none from the Bengal capital or for that matter the east this time. At Ford's prestigious Supermodel of the World contest here last evening, it was a straight battle between the country's commercial powerhouse and the Silicon Valley. Of the 18 finalists picked from dozens of models across the country, seven were from Mumbai and five from Bangalore. Mumbai's beauties, for the second time in a row, took a beating at the hands of a tall, slender 19-year-old from the infotech capital. When the Ford supermodel contest last took place in Mumbai in 1998, Vidisha Pavate, a dark Bangalorean resembling supermodel Naomi Campbell, walked away with the crown. After a gap of two years, another Bangalore girl, Kiran Vajpey, repeated the feat, stealing the show on the Chitrakoot grounds in Andheri. Mumbai had to content itself with the number two position, bagged by Diandra Soares, with cropped hair and a broad grin. The result, however, was akin to the US presidential elections - too close to call. After two hours of glitzy catwalking in the open air, the lean models - sometimes skimpily dressed, sometimes fully clothed, left the judges in a tizzy. Ford Models Inc. vice-president Neal Hamil, who has handled the likes of Naomi Campbell and Stephanie Seymour, joined Sunil Dutt, Salman Khan and supermodels Gail Hutchinson and Helen Fairbrother, all on the jury, and scratched their heads as they tried hard to pick the winner. The compere started cracking jokes to kill time. The finalists fidgeted as they waited for the announcement. The compere finally threw up his hands in despair, saying he had run out of jokes. 'I don't know what they are doing behind the stage because there is not even a couch there,'' he cracked, adding: 'Please, put on the music.'' Then came the moment the models had been waiting for. Hamil, Dutt and Salman strode onto the stage to declare the result and commit a faux pas. Kiran Vajpey, the six-foot-tall model, tallest of the lot, was declared 'the runner up'. She came up, took a bouquet from a judge and walked the ramp in silence, a trace of a smile on her face. Then she stood silently by a throne placed in the middle of the stage for the winner. Suddenly, the truth was out. 'It was a comedy of errors,'' the compere yelled, trying to limit the damage done. No, the girl from Bangalore was not the runner up, but victor. Vajpey was now crowned and handed another bouquet. This time, the smile on her face was replaced with tears of joy. She sat on the throne as reality sank in, waiting to fly to Puerto Rico to participate in Ford's International Supermodel as India's sole representative.