Wow!! A party! Thanks Bhaskar for telling me about this!
First of all, congratulations to Ashish! Well deserved and kudos for treating us to some spectacular singing.I wil always look forward to hearing from you. I need to make a special mention of the song that your voice etched in my mind - Lamha Lamha. I had not heard this song before, so your version was the first one. Because I had not heard Abhijeet singing this song, I had nothing to compare you with. And you sang it so beautifully, and it suited you so much, that when I went to listen to the original, I found that I wanted to go back and listen to you. You sang it better than Abhijeet.
Aparna, what can i say? Now I probably can tell everyone that you were the one from whom I had come to expect the most. You are a brilliant singer, never mind a few hits and misses. That does not take away from your brilliance as a singer.
Seema, you have a beautiful voice, and in this competition itself you went from strength to strength and the results show how much you improved. Congrats!
Raju, as a judge, I could not support anyone personally. I had my work cut out, and unfortunately my job was to find the flaws (that's all that the judges do anyway, don't they? 😆 ). But as an audience, you were my personal favourite. Reason - your exuberance. You have the capability to bring any song into life. You are gifted, and you have the capability to mould any song to give it an identity. Don't loose this gift. Bst of luck.
I will come back...today I have to rust out now. But wanted to write before I forgot to...again!
Also, I need to apologise for all teh delays that I caused because I was not able to submit the judgements on time. Please do forgive me. Also, I have tried to be as open and transparent as possible. Still, if I have caused any hurt to anyone, I seek forgiveness for that too.
Last but not the least, Barnali and Bhaskar have been a great support all through this competition, bending backwards to accomodate my hayware schedules. And my thanks to the mentors, who patiently sat through the time when we as judges took forever to come out with the results. All the participants helped me at some point or the other to get reconnected with something I love so much, music. Thank you for giving me the honour of being a judge.
Minnie
