The rise of young champs

The rise of young champs

Children surprise judges with their singing prowess on the newly-launched talent show

Subhash K Jha

The latest talent hunt, Zee TV's Little Champs, aims to promote young singing talent. And the show received a record one lakh entries from four major cities. "We conducted auditions in Mumbai, Delhi , Kolkata and Lucknow that were judged by Abhijeet, Alka Yagnik and Bappi Lahiri. We came across some really talented children," says producer-director Gajendra Singh. "Of the one lakh entries, 98 percent of the young singers were from the age-group 8-14. They were actually trained singers who had learnt classical singing from a skilled tutor. We would only ask any of them to sing a dadra or a thumri and they would start singing spontaneously,"

So far, the judges have selected only 20 contestants from the one lakh who enrolled. Again, out of the 20, only 10 contestants would be finalised next week. "The little singers are phenomenal! We'll choose our Little Champ in 16 weeks," says judge Bappi Lahiri.

If there were indeed so many talented young singers in India, what can explain the shortage of singing talent in the industry? And don't most young singing wonders become disillusioned as they grow up? Hemant Kumar Mukherjee's daughter Ranu Mukherjee, Bappi Lahiri's daughter Reema, composer Laxmikant's daughter Rajeshwari, and singer Anuradha Paudwal's daughter Kavita Paudval were some young singing sensations who failed to make it to the top.

"That's because they exhaust themselves too soon by over-doing it. Our Little Champ will be given enough space to come into his own," says Gajendra Singh.