Another singer on the ascendant

Guwahati, May 29: Singers from Assam are hitting the right note in the country's entertainment capital, Mumbai.

After Zubeen Garg and Debojit Saha, 18-year-old Bonjyotsna Borgohain from Guwahati is on the threshold of a rewarding career in tinsel town with television playing her mentor.

Bonjyotsna, a student in Mumbai, has just entered the last stage of Zee TV's Sa Re Ga Ma Pa-Ek Main Aur Ek Tu contest along with Sharib from Jaipur. Both are disciples of Leslie Lewis, whose Colonial Cousins is the most original fusion band in the country.

Although she has not generated the kind of mass hysteria in Assam that Debojit did when he competed in the first edition of the same reality show, Bonjyotsna has become a household name and fan clubs have been formed in several parts of the state.

During a visit to Guwahati two weeks ago, the amiable singer said she did not want people to vote for her through SMS or telephone calls to a specific number just because she hailed from Assam. "I want the people to listen to my songs and then decide. I don't want votes just because I am there."

That, however, did not stop Bonjyotsna's family from making fervent appeals to music lovers to vote for her just the way they did for Debojit, making him the "Voice of India".

Her mother, Thunu Borgohain, said at a news conference on Saturday that Bonjyotsna and Sharib were lagging behind — in third position — by over two lakh votes and required Assam's support to advance to the next level.

The next round, to be telecast on Thursday and Friday, will see one of the three remaining groups eliminated.

"I request the people to vote for Bonjyotsna, just as we all voted for Debojit, and give her an opportunity to bring laurels to the state," she said.

Bonjyotsna, who was a participant in the Voice of India contest, too, began learning singing when she was just four.

Over the next 14 years, she won several contests, including a recent talent hunt organised by a New Delhi-based organisation at the Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra in Guwahati.

The elder of two children — she has a brother — Bonjyotsna has found a strong backer in the Youth Congress. Just as the All Assam Students Union campaigned for Debojit, the Youth Congress intends to support Bonjyotsna all the way. "We are conducting a poster campaign and organising motorbike rallies to seek votes for her," D. Bayan, president of the Guwahati Youth Congress unit, said.

Bonjyotsna's father, Ratul Borgohain, is an IOC employee. The family's roots are in Sivasagar.