Article:SRGMO scores over Indian Idol

T he third season of Sony's Indian Idol and the second of Zee's Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 were launched last weekend. Riding on exces- sive hype, both the shows have seen a change of guard. With Gajendrra Siingh, the original man behind Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, moving on to newer pastures, Zee is pulling out all stops to make the show work. In Indian Idol, the judges Farah Khan and Sonu Nigam have been replaced by Udit Narayan and Alisha Chinai. Javed Akhtar has been roped in to add stature to the show. The first episode Sa Re Ga Ma Pa scores over Indian Idol 3 in terms of the qual- ity of singers. Indian Idol's search for the desh ki shaan has contestants coming in droves but most of them are all noise and out of tune.The judges clearly looked bored and struggled hard to sep- arate the wheat from the chaff. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, on the other hand, gave the viewers a brief idea of the what, where and how of the auditions, and got the selected few on (from India, Pak- istan, the UK and US), on to cen- tre-stage. It looks a close compe- tition between the singers. The jury In the very first episode of Idol, Akhtar and Anu Malik had a bit of a tu tu main main. Akhtar asked Malik to shut his trap once he'd given his opinion. Malik, as always, tried to do a Simon Pow- ell. He also seemed to be missing his earlier co-judges. Chinai grappled with her new role as she either rolled her eyes or shut her ears. Narayan mostly preferred to be a fence-sitter. Also, the show seemed more about a bickering jury than about the contestants. The gum-chewing Ismaiil Dar- bar and Himesh Reshammiya now have Bappi Lahiri and Vishal-Shekhar, for company. Darbar and Reshammiya looked smug, maybe because they have seen it all before. Darbar was described as "the legendary music composer"(??). The celebri- ty jury will provide plenty of amusing fodder in the coming weeks. The promos of Asha Bhosle snubbing Reshammiya in this week's episode are on the air – a surefire recipe for an interest- ing episode. The hosts Mini Mathur and Hussein Kuwajerwala (who replaces Aman Verma) effortlessly enact their roles as hosts of Indian Idol 3. Aditya Narayan who replaces the affable Shaan in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa is earnest and confident,though his baby face would have suited a kiddie song and dance show better. Finally, it's the drama..staged or otherwise..played out by the jury that will be the mainstay of both the shows. The participants will just be observers to the tamasha.