.......a journey called life

Once upon a time, there were two finalists in a competition and one of them was obviously not as good as the other. But guess, who finally won the competition? It was the bad guy! Nice Guys finish last, isn't it?

Yes, I am talking about SaReGaMaPa Challenge 2005 finalists - Vinit and Debojit! Debojit polled 27,757,733 votes against Vinit’s 27,298,268 votes to win the competition and went on to become a lost star! His home state - Assam took on to their ego to make Debojit a winner because he was humiliated more than once because of his poor singing skills and yet surviving the competition week after week. There was even discussions whether Debojit is emerging as India's voice or Assam's voice! In some of the weeks, as much as 82% of the votes were from Assam only. No wonder he emerged as a winner. Hats off to Vineet who gave him such a competition purely backed by his singing quality.

Now, Mr Gajjendra Singh is directing another show Voice of India (VOI) and he is no longer associated with SaReGaMaPa. So, all the charm has come with him to VOI. Looks like, he has learnt from his mistake and he has now added another twist to the selection process. 50% of the votes lies with the judge and the rest with public.

Flash ! Come to 2008! We have a similar situation and it's a Deja Vu for me and many other who watched the previous show! We have three finalists left now in the show - Aishwarya, Anwesha and Prakriti. Aishwarya and Anwesha are the stars and Prakriti is an average joe between them (and she is from Darjeeling - not too far from Assam). But it so happens that public voting is helping her to climb up the ladder week after week and she has finally managed to come to Top 3. She was even eliminated from the competition sometime back but got resurrected like a phoenix using wild card entry which was decided by 100% public voting.

This entire phenomenon must be troubling Gajjendra Singh and he is determined not to letthe history repeat itself. Judges have been instructed (I presume) to give Prakriti the last rank every week (every damn week) irrespective of what she sings because they know that she will survive through public voting. So, they are doing their best to throw her out. This week, when all the three finalists performed in Bhopal, judges took another stab at her when they felt that it is going a bit too far. They publicly criticized her voice quality and her merit to be in the Top 3. So much so that she cried on the stage.

Everyone must be feeling bad about her but I am not feeling all that bad about her. She should have been eliminated long back and the reason judges have to be so direct now is that public has taken her too far. I bet Gajjendra Singh will not let another Debojit win the competition. He is doing all he can, in his own right, to convince the public to vote for the "right" person. It's looking dirty on screen but it takes a person of his gut to do this kind of manipulation. I really commend him to do his best to let the best person win! I don't know if Assam and the north-east will again take it to their heart and vote for her like mad to make her another Debojit. I just pray it should not happen anymore!