A Weekend of only Melody...

A week of melody was gifted by the reality shows this weekend. It is indeed refreshing to see so many gifted singers sharing the musical platform at the same time, trying to prove themselves and treating the viewers with brilliant performances one after  the other. While it is a listener’s delight, it definitely is a judge’s nightmare! “To eliminate” or “Not to eliminate” or “Who to eliminate” - this dilemma has plagued the judges while selecting the worthy ones for the next round and some of their decisions have left the viewers and the participants baffled as well.

Star Voice of India this week definitely was Bemisaal!!!! On the first day all the participants got the exact same points and on the very next day the rest of them faced all the flak!!! How it is possible that all nine earn 10 each - more as the singing was not up to the mark of all? This week the show finally got its “Bemisaal Barah” and from next week public voting gets started. But are the selected 12 really “Bemisaal” as titled? Some really good contestants got eliminated while weaker ones got selected instead. Selection of those contestants who had got eliminated in the audition rounds itself in the last season raises serious questions now if proper auditions were really conducted around the nation or not. While the participants went all out to give good performances, the judges seem more interested in other matters besides singing. The judges are yet to come up with any concrete musical tips to participants. With a properly defined format and proper guidance these talented participants could have done wonders.  

SaReGaMaPa started with its second round of “Chakravyuh Round” with Kavita Krishnamurthy as the Mahaguru. It was nice to see legendary Ravindra Jain also there as guest. However, his advice seemed more of poetic expression than real time tips. The show so far seems to be following a fixed format but as far as viewers are concerned the format is still quite unclear. The production house needs to make the format more lucid to the viewers. The selection criteria still seems quite confusing. Pratibha was given the golden key on Friday by the Mahaguru. Considering the mixed reaction that she had received on her performance from the mentors and the Mahagurus it is still unclear why she was chosen over others who had received far more encouraging feedback. This is not all. This show also witnessed an unfair elimination. Survinder despite not giving a flawless performance (a fact which was pointed out by the mentors) was selected over the Pakistani contestant Faraz, who had given a much better performance! Hope to see Faraz back into the contest in the Sanjeevani Booti round!!

Where the other two shows went without any drama NDTV Imagine’s Junoon stuck to the same even this week. Anand Raj Anand questioning the format when he saw axe falling on one of his best contestant raises question as to why this was not raised in the past so many weeks. It was sad to see Saptak leaving the show. This show has one of the best talents and again this week they proved it with some awesome performances. Malini raised a very important point about our musical trend this week when she got emotional explaining how the “Lok Sangeet” is getting lost today in this new Gen-X music. “Lok Sangeet” is the root of our music and this is something that needs to be realized, nice that this show brought to the forefront this genre of music to the masses. The director of the show Mr Gajendra now seems to be following the legendary director Shubash Ghai’s path. Like Ghai he too is making sure to get himself a role in the “Script” and is making appearance in “front of the camera” atleast once in every season of his shows.

If one can filter out the dramas, the format confusions or the judges’ whimsical behaviors the shows are a real treat to watch. Again the same question surfaces – when there are so many talented participants who can hold viewers attention with just their singing, why introduce other factors which may grab the attention of some viewers momentarily but would definitely dilute the objective of the shows.

Author: Barnali