Femina Miss India Assam contestant Anushka Lekharu talks about need of sex education, changing mindset and more

The bold and beautiful Anushka Lekharu was born in Guwahati, Assam, the entrance to the beautiful North East India, and has spent an eternity living, learning, and growing in the city. Belonging to the ethnic groups, she has always promoted Assam's cultural legacy and wants to be a part of those revolutionary causes and create a change to influence and fly freely.

Speaking to IndiaTodayNE, the Femina Miss India contestant from Assam shared her journey to the world of beauty pageants.

How did you get the opportunity and what steps did you take to prepare?

“I entered the field of beauty pageants at the age of 16 and since then my preparations have been started. Being in the field of beauty pageants and being groomed by different people across the northeast helped me build that confidence to be on the stage today. I got this opportunity honestly because I overcame my self-doubts and self-beliefs in spite of suffering from body image issues. I decided to go through this because it has always been my dream to be crowned as Miss India ever since I saw Aishwariya Rai Bachchan as Miss World, I started to manifest myself wearing the crown someday and that is how I thought that this time I’ll go for it and in the very first attempt I cracked it. So thanks to all those years since 16 that helped me build this confidence to be here today”.

You are also a civil service aspirant? How do you manage both professions?

Since childhood, both my parents have taught me the value of education and my father has always pushed me towards that direction. In fact, during my graduation time itself, I started doing coaching for Assam civil services and that really helped me. During my studies itself, I was preparing for civil services. I have also done my masters in English literature. So for a long time, I have always balanced both my professional which is my modeling career with education hand to hand. Sometimes I had to sacrifice my modeling. Especially during my boards, but that does not mean that I missed out on opportunities. I just put a halt to it so that I could revive and come back with more energy and give my best. I think it is very necessary for anybody to balance both education and other things, other co-curricular activities. For me, I believe if you do not have an education, you cannot even if in terms of beauty pageants today, if I'm speaking communication skills and speaking skills, are required, and asserting a confident personality is required and to enhance that education is vital. Hence I've always managed that somehow in my life hand to hand and today I stand here doing Miss India only because of my education.

Do you think you can create a legacy by being a voice of hope and inspiration to people who are planning to do so?

I have always aspired to create a legacy for the countless dreamers through every opportunity presented to me through beauty pageants, I want to become an advocate towards women empowerment. I have suffered the trauma of abuse in my life at a tender age and I have met several victims who have gone through the stigma in their lives. Whenever I hear their stories, my heart aches. Physically they have been damaged. 

But something that I learned, something that keeps them alive, is their hopes and dreams. Whenever I listen to them, they tell me about their dreams, of how they want to accomplish something in their lives that keeps their spirits alive through beauty pageants itself. I want to be able to be an example to these women, that nothing is impossible.

My teacher once told me, This is your time to fly, so spread your wings and fly high. Looking back at this present time, you must not have any regrets for never trying or exploring, and that has led me here. Hence I would say this to every other person out there who have gone through something or the other in their lives nothing is impossible. You might be suppressed, but you should never suppress your dreams.

Have you ever faced any kind of body challenges?

Yes, at a very tender age, I had gone through body image issues which included eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and binge eating. Due to which at a certain age. I also gained a lot of weight and I also decreased a lot of weight and that always created a hindrance towards my dream towards my goals. It always pulled me back.

And I started to have those self-doubts and self beliefs inside of myself. Somehow I gained the courage. Finally, I overcame everything through my journey of beauty pageants and my agility and determination toward my goals pushed me harder to achieve where I am standing today. It has never been easy, but I always believed that feeling confident in your skin is what matters the most. It was a very difficult journey, but I also maintained a healthy fitness regime, and that worked out for me.

Many women from our society have always been a victim of bad touch, and verbal abuse. Have you also faced something like that?

I've never experienced any kind of discrimination or racist remarks in my life regarding my looks regarding my appearance, or the way I speak. Also, coming from a public school background as I did my schooling at Delhi Public School, Hindi was always my subject and I had never had any kind of problem speaking Hindi. So I feel lucky and I feel fortunate that I have never gone through something like this in my life. However, I do believe it is an existential problem and it is really upsetting because I have a lot of friends in my life who suffer from this problem and they tell me their stories and it really, really angers me. And I feel this can only be changed through spreading awareness and creating a change in the mindsets of people recently one of my friends told me. That she was in a restaurant and she was sitting there and somebody just came there and asked her, are you Chinese? Do you speak Chinese? And she replied to the person in Hindi. That in itself is very upsetting for any individual because that is so racist and very harsh to anybody. I believe it is not our job to judge a book by its cover because we do not know the story or the background of any individual. Everybody has their own struggles in their lives and we are nobody to comment on how they look and the way they speak. Also, I do believe, that even if a person is Chinese, why should we spread hatred toward that person? In today's generation, we must focus on the positive side and the bright side of life. As an individual, I always try to perceive things from the bright side, and I do believe, that in order to rise, We need to find positivity in each other rather than finding flaws in between each other because all these falls will only take us down together. And in today's time, we need to build ourselves as powerful and strong to survive in life. We need to be happier together. So let's motivate each other to spread love and kindness rather than focusing on differences and bringing differences in each other's lives.

What will be your message to those who are suffering from these issues?

Through my research, I learned that 97% of women have suffered abuse and harassment in their lives, especially under the age of 18. I myself have gone through this trauma in my life at a very tender age, not just once, but multiple times, thanks to my family, who has always been there supporting me, that helped me break barriers and achieve where I am today. Somehow a lot of women are suppressed and they are conscious of society, and that has somehow led them to believe a negative mindset toward their inner selves. And my message to these people would be they might have snatched your innocence, but not your spirit to survive. Always remember that you are the most strongest individual in this universe and there is no one like you. There might be people who might criticise you at all points in time. But you must take those criticisms as constructive criticisms and go ahead in life. There will be different kinds of obstacles in your lives, but I always believe this, and I apply this in my life that an athlete also has to cross different obstacles to reach that point, and similarly as an individual, also, different kinds of obstacles and barriers will be laid down for us in our path to reach where we need to go. But we have to overcome that with our dreams in mind with our determination and that is very important. Most importantly, I believe that in our society we must educate our Children most, especially our men, on how to respect women and to give proper sex education because changing the mindset is the most vital thing possible in today's generation.

Northeast people always face discrimination because of their looks and pronunciation of Hindi. How did you overcome that?

According to me, beauty is subjective and there's a code that says beauty lies in the eyes of beholder. So when it comes to skincare, honestly I do not really follow a certain type of skincare routine. And I also personally believe that every individual has different kinds of skin care based on the skin type they have. For me, usually what I do is just follow the basic rules.

That is cleanse, moisturize, and tone. That is all I do for my skin. But the most important element of any skincare routine and for any individual is a proper healthy diet and hydrating yourself. That is drinking lots and lots of water and that is something that I apply in my life. Even though I do not do much for my skin, I definitely have lots of water. 

I keep myself hydrated because that makes my skin glow. Also, there is another factor for glowing skin. That is to be happy and to have a smile on your face at all times. At least for me, whenever there is an adverse situation, I try to smile through those negative energies. I try to smile through every bad thing in my life and that makes my skin glow. So for everyone out there, keep on hydrating yourself. Eat healthy and have a smile on your face. Be happy with your inner self. That is why a true skincare routine I feel is possible for everybody.