| By Sneha Hazarika |
| Mini Mathur is thrilled at being asked to anchor Indian Idol for the third time in a row. The happy anchor gushes, "It felt wonderful to be asked back because it means I was appreciated by the viewers, channel and producers and my contribution was valued. Also I am much too attached to the show and would have felt very odd watching someone else in my place," she says. Mini is one lucky girl because there have been a lot of replacements on the show. Alisha Chinoy and Udit Narayan will replace former judges Sonu Nigam and Farah Khan. And Hussain will be co-anchoring the show with Mini for the first time. When asked what she has to say about the new faces on the show, Mini says, "I have had no prior interaction with Hussain but everybody I know only has nice things to say about him. I look forward to working with him as it's very important to vibe and work well together on a show like this." As far as the new judges go she says she interacted with them when she was a VJ on MTV and Channel V, but will reserve her comments about them till she meets them again. At the moment she is busy travelling around the country and conducting auditions. "I have just returned from Jodhpur. There is a whole lot of bright talent out there. It was very tiring physically as we have left no stone unturned to reach out to cities we haven't been to before. Earlier seasons had just four locations whereas we are going to 10-11 cities this time. If the talent can't reach us, we will reach the talent," she says. Wonder if all this extra effort has to do with the fact that the show didn't live up to expectations in its second season. "Indian Idol is India's first reality show. I don't think any other show has matched the first season's popularity. As far as I am concerned, all others are way behind Idol. I am a loyalist," answers a defensive Mini. With this she moves on to pleasanter topics like her look on the show. "My stylist Rishika Hegde gets all my favorite designers like Suneet Varma, Manish Malhotra, Amber and Shirrin, Tarun Tahiliani etc to do my clothes. This time I hope to be trendy, chic, contemporary but Indian," she says. |
Anupamaa
