A Kishore Kumar special is always a treat, even though the singers managed to sing reality show favourites like Ek Haseena Thi and Hungama Ho Gaya in spite of the self-consciously retro theme. Oh well!
Toshi. Again, I will not grade him for all the reasons I stated last week. Off-sur in two places.
Priyani's performance was her best so far, I thought. She had sur and taal in place (as I recall). She was expressive. Personally, I don't like her voice quality in the higher reaches, but I will give her an A because this is the first time she has deserved it.
Mirande was good, but please, please, can we get over this tuneless song and have one full season without it. There was a thread earlier about songs we did not want to hear, and now I wish I had listed this there in bold letters. Mirande's grade: B++. She deserves an A but this song has such a flatness to it, I cannot say her performance sounded really good.
I feel very sad about Prantik. My mother, who watches with me, made an observation that sums up his performance: when Kishore Kumar sang, you could hear the string instruments in his voice, the tabla, the flute. I will take that further and say: you can hear the depth of the water, the ripples caused by the oars, the silence that the ripples shatter. I don't even hear that when Abhijeet sings this song, although he clearly does. I did hear the same thing when Sameer sang with him.
Prantik's sur was okay, his taal was a little hurried. But his performance was very superficial and that just killed. He has a good voice; I don't know why his performances are slipping. I am wondering if anxiety about voting is affecting some of the singers. My grade for Prantik: B.
Arshpreet was very good. I think of all the voices in this competition, hers is the one I like best. She combines a beautiful wheat-and-honey voice with flawless sur and taal, and she is expressive. My grade: A, which with a miniscule injection of energy would be an A+. Sometimes Arshpreet sounds just a little languid when she should not. But really, I will not grudge her that extra, so final grade: A+
Now, I will give Irfan an A+ too. I am delighted to see his performances improving. He seemed to control the bullet-train in his soul and his timing was perfect. His sur was on target and his performance was full of life as it needed to be. Superb! I hope he can keep this up.
Harshit. All right but something wrong. Energy? Life? Something that needs a little more pushing, pressing. The comment that there is no youth in his voice was an attempt to articulate just that, I think. There is a flatness of soul, he is so conscious of needing to perform well, that he does not lose himself in the song... is that it? I don't know. He can sing. So why does not not sweep me away into the song? Grade: B++.
Prantika is not singing well. Versatility by all means, but not when you are not versatile; she sang one or two songs outside her comfort zone and then she should have returned to it. She is so uncomfortable singing, she makes listening uncomfortable. Sur was quite off. Grade: C.
And then comes Sumitra, who even though she was low-energy by her own standards, turned in a great performance. Just a spot of energy would have taken this to one of her best performances, but it was very good just the same. A.
Abhilasha was a little off today, off sur once or twice, but mostly just off her excellent standard. I think she got very carried away but the hiccuping and forgot that the song's strength is the melodious part. I am being super-critical here because we are becoming accustomed to superb and flawless performances from this girl. I want to say to her, come back to your own performance personality. Come back to the song. Your voice does everything for you and your movement on stage should supplement it rather than vice versa. My grade: A.
Abhaas is an A+(+). Not that he did two voices. Not that he was so expressive. Not that his sur and taal were flawless. But because he does what Prantik and Harshit could not do: make us forget Abhaas, the competition, the celebrities and just get lost in the song and its crazy genius. If Alka were here, she would have said, nazar na lage, and so I will.
I will not pointlessly open the two oldest debates in IF: who chose these songs (for Toshi and Mirande's choices) and why are singers like Arshpreet and Abhaas in the danger zone? We've all been there, done that.
On the whole, I enjoyed the episode. I enjoyed the guests (responding to another thread: I don't really mind the variety of celebrity guests; their opinions are as valid as mine, since I too am not an Jasraj or Semmangudi.). And many of the performances were good. Can some one control the regular judges and their childish exuberance, though? And bring back Alka soon.
Book Talk
Anupamaa
