CHENNAI: Miss India 2014 finalist Sahithya Jagannathan’s first academic stop for college was Ahmedabad for an interior design course, but due to various reasons found herself in the BA Journalism class of 2012 at MOP Vaishnav College for Women, Chennai, where she was “a couple of years older to her classmates. “I, in fact, started classes three weeks late and was worried that my classmates might have formed friends’ groups without me. Thankfully, I was accepted despite my classmates initially nurturing presumptions that hailing from a modelling background I would have an attitude,” says the 24-year-old who won the Miss Chennai title in 2009.
The backbencher admits that she was hardly in class for the first year because of shows and shoots but remembers from the few times that she spent there, about how her classmates “were dolled up while I would show up in simple clothes, glasses and my hair tied up in a bun.” Her modelling assignments never stopped her from being a top student and she says she always finished her projects on time. “My teachers, especially the present principal, Lalitha Balakrishnan, and HoD Vyjayanthi Krishnaswamy always encouraged me and gave me permission to even bunk college for a month when it was unavoidable,” she says. In 2010, she took a month off to participate in the World Miss University pageant held in Seoul, South Korea.
Happy that she ditched interior design for journalism, Sahithya remembers her classes for being “out of the box”. “We didn’t just sit and pore over the chapters. Our teachers encouraged us to be the tutors most of the time, and we used to make PPT (power point presentations) or just take our classmates through the course, watch films and do an appreciation and such. It was like a vacation,” she says, rewinding to those days.
Despite hardly attending college, Sahithya helped the management as much as she could, including organising a fashion show for charity. That is probably one of the reasons why she was presented with the best student award for extracurricular activities in the final year. “We raised a couple of lakhs and it felt good,” she says about the fashion show.
When she was in college, Sahithya didn’t find the need to rush to the back door to escape. “I mean, what’s the point? College gets over at 1; you have plenty of time to do what you want. We used to visit a famed pani puri stall in Nungambakkam or just hang out at the Isphani Centre (a shopping mall) near our college,” she says. She and her gang of friends would, at times, catch up on their favourite movies at Sathyam Cinemas in the city.
It is hard to believe that Sahithya was single through college, that too for someone with drop dead gorgeous looks. “It’s true, believe me! Everyone in the set had a boyfriend and at times the giggling and the inconsequential fights were too annoying, truth be told,” she says emphatically.
While Sahithya’s long hands and legs were appreciated on the runway, her teachers didn’t think so. “It used to be quite difficult to fit my legs in the old benches they had at MOP. I used to sit in the corner with one leg sticking out and many a teacher tripped. I felt sheepish when they would angrily order me out,” she says.
Though she harboured hard feelings about missing the Miss India crown, Sahithya has moved on. She is set to debut in the film industry with her performance in famed director R Parthiepan’s Kathai Thiraikathai Vasanam Iyakkam in which she has an ensemble cast for company. The movie is slated for release soon. “Parthiepan is a perfectionist like Aamir Khan. He doesn’t get satisfied easily and always pushes you to try harder for an extra shot,” she says. Calling it an “interesting film”, she is banking quite a bit on the multi-starrer and hopes it will click at the box office. If, as she hopes, it doesn’t turn out to be her break, “there’s always modelling, you know,” she says.
— shilpa.vasudevan@newindianexpress.com