Empowering women through pageants

Anjana Mascaren has is an international pageant coach who runs her brand by the name of Diva Pageants. She runs three pageants – Mrs Maharashtra-Empress of Maharashtra, Mrs West India-Empress of West

She adds proudly, “It fills my heart with pride knowing Diva Pageants are touted as the best and most trusted pageants for married women as honesty, integrity, and hard work is my secret of building the DIVA brand.”

Anjana believes that pageantry changes lives and her passion towards transforming lives and helping women carve an identity for themselves is the most rewarding factor. Balancing her personal and professional life sometimes becomes a challenge but effective time management has helped her become more productive. She shares, “For me, the mantra to success is teamwork. My key influential people are my family, friends, my awesome DIVA team and all my DIVA queens.”

Her vision is to make more people believe in pageantr y and make it such a life transforming programme that it becomes a must for all women. “Five years down the line , DIVA should become the most prestigious pageant for married women,” she says.

The aforementioned pageants under DIVA has become synonymous with women empowerment in the field of pageantry for the ladies who didn’t have a chance to participate in beauty pageants when they were single, or for someone who just wants to make her own identity and use the platform to voice out her opinions on a bigger scale and to a wider audience.

Beauty pageants for married women were often ignored or side-lined in the sea of pageants for unmarried girls with each city having t heir only multiple pageants. The rise of this sector came into highlight when Anjana entered this domain and continued to handle it extremely well.

She has been an influential person in providing a genuine and reliable platform to married women that the category of Mrs India was no more just a small sector or a sector where money bought crowns. The women who participate in Diva Pageants shine almost instantly due to the various opportunities that come their way.

Anjana started her career as a fashion designer through her own boutique in 1998 on MG Road, Pune, and later took a pageant course from an academy in USA in 2013.

She experienced pageantry for the very first time in 2015, by being a finalist herself in a Mrs India Pageant and t hat was probably her first step to bigger stardom in life, which was creating her own platform to empower a lot more women and allowing them to live a life by being addressed as a ‘Queen’, something that is seen with respect in the society.

For her Outstanding work in the field of Pageantr y Anjana has been awarded Groomer of the Year 2016 by Grehlakshmi Magazine, Icons of Pune 2017, Savvy Women Empowerment Award 2019, Entrepreneur of the Year 2020, Women’s Achiever Award 2021. She is also the National Director for Mrs Universe, Mrs Queen of the World & Mrs Star Universe