Voice of India

Just before i could shoot out some question like ' why there are very few good programs on star plus' , there came another talent hunt show Amul Star Voice of India, which can be seen on every friday & saturday night at 10. This is one show which i have never missed, can never miss & will never miss.

Judged by the most talented people like singers Alka Yagnik, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, music directors Jatin & Lalit Pandit, Aadesh Shrivastava & hosted by another gr8 singer Shantanu a.k.a Shaan, this program started in June '07, with rounds of eliminations zone-wise, short-listing to just 3-4 from each zone, which then lead to the ' bemisaal barah '.
oh yeah before the bemisaal barah it was bemisaal pandhraa, ie., 15 contestants before short-listing to the 12 gr8 singers! ;) It was very difficult for the judges to eliminate some good singers & so 3 more singers were selected along with the 12 others.

So, back to bemisaal barah, 2 groups were formed, Agni team & Prithvi team
Agni Team consisted of - Sumitra, Mirande, Arshpreet, Harshit, Abhas, Toshi, & Judges Aadesh Shrivastava & Lalit Pandit.
Prithvi Team consisted of - Abhilasha, Prantika, Priyani, Ishmeet, Prantik, Irfan, & Judges Alka Yagnik & Abhijeet.
Jatin Pandit was common for both.

Then started the voting system (I'm against this system though, seeing the rounds of episodes since the past few weeks!) , audience had to vote for their favourite contestants, & with the help of number of votes, the contestant who got the least number of votes got eliminated. All of them excellent singers, it was, & is still very difficult for the judges as well as the audience to judge who was, & is the best!

Fridays are the days when there's eliminations as well as the contestants' performances, & saturdays the contestants just performs & gets points from the judges! ;)
Ya, the voting period is from saturday 10 pm to sunday 12 midnight.
4 contestants who get the least number of votes are in 'chakravaat' or danger zone, which is a very crucial moment for whoever fall in that, & the others fall in 'suraksha chakra' or are safe.
The 1st contestant to get eliminated was Prantika, then the next week, 2nd one, Prantik got eliminated.
The 3rd person to get eliminated was Ashpreet, which was a very sad moment for her because for the 1st time her dad had come on the sets to see her sing live! :(
The 4th elimination was a huge shock for all of us, including the judges, host, the creative director of the program, audience.....! It was none other than the very talented singer Toshi! I do not know about the others, but i never expected him to get eliminated ! Every1 among the audience cried, even the judges cried!
The 5th elimination was again a big shock, it was Priyani. She's another very talented singer, was known as a 'fighter'! (see this is the reason i dislike voting system! )
The next day after Priyani got eliminated, Alka ji announced about the wild card entry between Ashpreet, Toshi & Priyani. Now lets hope for the best & lets see who comes back!
The 6th person to get eliminated was Mirande, a national level swimmer! Being a sports person, she took the elimination very sportingly, but still was sad as she would have to part with her friends!
Now that's the saddest part, 12 youngsters staying together for almost 4-5 months, they ought to have becomes the closest of buddies! So 1 contestant's elimination was like other contestants' loss, they all hugged & cried & encouraged each other.....!

There are different themes for the contestants, like, yesterday (15th sept), it was marriage theme & the contestants had to sing some marriage related songs, on 14th sept it was parent's special, all the contestants' parents had come, & the contestants sang parents' choice! ;)
Parents' special episode was 1 episode which no one can ever forget! 1st thing, Harshit lifted his dear granny, who's blind, & got her on stage, & made her sit throughout the time he sang! There were some emotional moments. Also, that day Shabana Azmi was 1 of the celeb guests, who made the long-time-apart brothers jatin & lalit pandit hug each other & made them forgive each other for everything! Their's was 1 issue which was in everyone's minds for long time now.
Now isn't that too sweet of her? :)

Also, Celeb guests, like, the Chak De girls, Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna, Govinda etc. are also called to see the program, encourage the contestants!
Not to forget to mention that there are also performances in which when a contestant sings, if there's a chorus, other contestants do that job, or like in yesterday's episode, when Harshit sang a song in which a female voice too, Alka Yagnik did that job! Yeah there have been instances wherein the co-contestants also gave in for such things! :)

Now, this is a gr8 example of a perfect team work, what say?? ;)

I would have loved to show you all some of the videos of the contestants performing, but most of them have been removed from youtube..... sad !! :(

You can still check this out - http://starvoiceofindia.indya.com