Leanne Alcasoas is pursuing her career in the field of Architecture at Bangalore. After completing her graduation in Architecture from the College of Architecture in Goa, Leanne decided to shift her base to Bangalore in search of the better prospects. But she is completely attached to Goa and she keeps coming back home as and when she gets time from her busy schedule to be with her family and savour her favourite fish curry rice. Although Leanne is an Architect by profession she has the passion for the modeling and she had bagged the Title of Ms. India International 2016 held at Titos Goa. I met Leanne to find out more about her passion and her profession.
Every person has a dream and works towards fulfilling it and Leanne is no exception to that. According to Leanne, she is very much passionate about the modeling but at the same time, she knows that she cannot make it as her career and hence her professions take the first priority and it is her primary objective but at the same time she wants to peruse her passion too.
When I asked her about her priorities as she said, “Actually, both of it, but I would still prefer to pursue my profession in Architecture since modelling doesn’t have the future and I cannot see my career in it,” she said adding that, “Everyone knows that modelling has very short term career. In fact being on the stage always gives me an immense pleasure and satisfaction and it also builds up my confidence every time. For me, it’s just like I enjoy doing that.”
The story behind Leanne’s crush with modeling is very interesting, according to her, it all started while one day she was partying with her friends. “One day while I was partying out with the group of friends in the Bangalore, coincidentally there was a was an audition going on for the Bangalore model hunt and they announced the wild card entry for this model hunt. I was there and thought of giving it a try,” said Leanne adding that, “But they did not select me that year and I thought it’s fine since it was just my first year in Bangalore I thought its good try.”
Normally people after facing a small failure gives up the hope but Leanne is not the one who would give up so easily and as there is a saying that God helps only those who help themselves, Leanne got another chance. According to Leanne although that year she did not get through she did not get disheartened. “Next year it’s so happened that these people got in touch with me and told me that they are having a session 2 audition and why don’t you come and audition for it.” For Leanne, it was her dream come true as according to her, she always wanted to try herself into the field of modeling since she had participated at the college level. “I went for the auditions and also got selected in the first round and after the second round I went for the grooming sessions and finally I won for the print category at that time,” she said.
The opportunity that Leanne got at Bangalore resulted into raising her confidence level and she decided to continue modeling as part time career and Architecture as a full-time profession. After leaving Goa in a search of a bright career in the field of Architecture Leanne was now sailing into the another boat of modeling and she had to balance both the things very efficiently and at this time another opportunity came into her way and it was the Tito’s Mega Modelling Event “Miss Goa International2016.”
When I asked Leanne about the reason behind leaving Goa and going into the Metropolis like Bangalore she said that Goa has a limited scope in terms of the learning graph and development here in Goa, “I would have even gone to Mumbai as it is bigger metro but since I was guided by my professor to go to the company at Bangalore I decided to choose the Bangalore,” said Leanne. According to Leanne, she always has the passion for modeling and working on the films and in fact, she had also done one short film in Goa. “It was in my first year of College, I used to go to Martins for the dance and I had also represented Goa at the national level into the dance form called Paso Doble along with my brother since this dance form needs a male partner,” she narrated.
This shows Leanne’s inclination towards the arts and creativity but instead of going into the field of Arts she decided to choose the Architecture, when I asked her as why she did not choose the field of Arts instead she said that “Actually to tell you the fact, I wanted to become an Engineer since everyone was going into the field of engineer and I was just going with the flow but I am thankful to the god that I did not get through the entrance exams for engineering. I remember at that point in time my mother told me that I will get what I want and I believe that her prayers been answered and I got the admission into the Architecture college and I feel that even Architecture demands the creativity and an artistic approach.”
Now coming back to the biggest opportunity that Leanne got in her modeling career and that was the Tito’s Miss Goa International. “The opportunity of Tito’s came into my way through one of my close friend’s recommendation. She informed me about the auditions that were going on for the Tito’s Miss Goa event. In fact, she only filled my form for the Tito’s Miss Goa Interactional Pageant,” Leanne said giggling. This opportunity came into her way just like that and she just had to send her images and bio data to her friend who registered her for the Tito’s Model Hunt event.
According to Leanne the event of Tito’s was based on the voting system. “Here all my goodwill and contacts came into the work. I had worked for the prestige and morphed design in Bangalore and those people were really helpful and they helped me spread the word everywhere. So now had contacts in Goa and Bangalore too which helped me into the voting and I got selected for the next round. In fact, Tito’s people told me that since my voting count is very good I need not attend the first round and directly get the entry into the second round.”
Although Leanne got selected for the next round it was not the victory yet and there were many challenges waiting on her way. According to Leanne, the biggest challenge was her competitors who were foreigners. Mainly the Russians girls who are tall fair and fit. When I asked her how she felt about the competition she told me that she was shocked when she saw her contenders. “Actually since I had not attended the first round I had not seen who are my contenders and so when I entered, I was like, ‘Oh My God!!!’ these are the people I am going to compete with. They were so tall, slim, trim and professional models. Initially, I was taken back but then I decide to get to know more about them,” she said.
According to Leanne, she always believed in herself and never got discouraged looking at the situation in front of her anytime. Leanne told me that she had a very big challenge in front of her but she was prepared to take it on. “Actually to tell you frankly, I had the stage fear and could not speak in front of the crown from the podium but it all went gradually as I decided to overcome it. But other factors were still posing a challenge before be such as the height of the competitors since I am as tall as the Russian girls are that matters to me. They were all beautiful and professionally trained models I had to compete with. After that day of grooming session, I went back and I was just working out as how I am going to compete with them but I had no turning back since I had already asked for the leave of one week from my office so decided to go ahead giving out my fear I will win to lose.”
The battles are always won with the proper technics and confidence and Leanne was full of it and she had nothing to lose but everything to gain. “I decided to set my goals. I had three things that had to overcome. First was the stage fright, Second get groomed and third was the most important, to communicate in public,” said Leanne. According to her, she planned she decided and she overcame all her shortcomings before the final round of competition.
Leanne won the title of Miss Goa International crossing all the odds in her way and she is confident that she will get more such opportunities and since she had already come over all her fear factors she will be able to compete with anyone. Leanne is the fine example of the struggle and victory and she has an inborn talent inside her.
