Courtsey my wife, who is very ardent viewer of all such type of programs, I must admit that of late, I have also become a bit addict to STAR VOICE OF INDIA and INDIAN IDOL 3 programs. For around half an hour, these two programs run concurrently and we keep on switching over from SONY to STAR PLUS very frequently, so as to have best of both the worlds.
Aired by **STAR PLUS** twice a week from **10pm to 11.30pm(Friday and Saturday)**, the channel had to bring this program to compete with Indian Idol. Star plus formed a core team of 5 very competent singers and composers(Abhijit, Lalit, Jatin, Aadesh & Alka Yagnik) and they screened voices across the country, visiting all major cities and arranging auditions. I must confess that as compared to Indian Idol 3, they have been able to gather a far superior stuff of voices. Contest after contest for elimination rounds, they finally narrowed down to 12 contestants selected from all over India, to appear and perform in the weekly star voice of India contest, wherein 1 contestant shall get eliminated every week.
The show is hosted by a very versatile singer in the formative stage of his career, SHAN and by and large, is doing good job but for occasional rhetoric "WONDERFUL", invariably after each performance. Perhaps the script writer needs to assist him in tossing variety of adjectives and adverbs to keep motivating the contestant at different times. Nevertheless, he has been able to put the flock together. Besides I am impressed by his confident entry style, his physical appearance and dressing sense. He can certainly improve his dialogue delivery.
The final 12 contestants have been divided into two groups, AGNI and PRITHVI. Aadesh and Jatin are mentors for AGNI group and Abhijit and Alka for PRITHVI group, with Lalit playing role of neutral umpire. Turn by turn, one contestant from each team comes to the stage, as chosen by his or her mentors and sings one song on pre-decided theme for that day. Put together both judges of the rival team give one score to the contestant after each of his / her performance out of max 10 and one score is given by the neutral umpire. Before the scores are shown, these are locked by an electronic pad and comments of the guest are sought for. Very eminent personalities like Sonu Nigam, Jagjit Singh have been invited as guests for comments in the last few episodes of this program. Usually the comments are motivational and appeasing in nature, however, in the event of bad performance, the guest reserves his or her appreciative comments but desists from giving negative remarks. After the expert comments, scores are shown to the audience. The scores and comments are expected to influence TV audience like us in giving votes through SMS to their favorite singers.
Next week, the performer who gets the lowest no. of votes for his last week’s two performances gets eliminated. That elimination is dramatised a bit by having bottom four singers in "CHAKARVAT" zone and the rest in "SURAKSHA" zone. Then Shan comperes and judges show discord and discontent, regardless of whoever singer gets eliminated for that week. Last episode had 9 contestants left and therefore after 8 weeks from now, we should have one singer as STAR VOICE of INDIA with us.
My favourite singers are Harshit, Abhaas and Toshy. I think amongst all, Abhaas is turning out to be real versatile singer and performer and has the potential to give all others run for their money. Fingers crossed, you never know, which factor plays what role at times and paves way for your favourite to ease out!
What I like most about the program is quality of voices those have been put together on a single platform. Some of the contestants are really from very down to earth families and would never have made to such large platform at such young age but for the programs conceived by TV channels like these. Of course! every effort of a commercial TV channel has to make a business sense and it is not doing it for chariy yet I consider it a noble way of helping society to identify and appreciate the raw talent spread across our diverse country.
Sometimes the melodrama displayed by these eminent 5 judges is quite disheartening and boring. If it is prefabricated, it does not speak very highly about the confidence the production house reposes in their format and if it is impromptu, it is highly childish. Especially Aadesh comments very loosly and contradictory for the same singer and ingenuinley reflects low respect for the singer, whereas Abhijit bores with his third rated, double meaning skirmishes with Alka on the screen. Beyond a point, when he stretches, he makes mockery of himself and belittles the prestige of the august forum.
While production unit is preferring not to edit it, shows that it may well be by design and not by default. Yet I would recommend viewing this program for its shear quality of voices and above drama may be considered a small price for the same.