Challenge 2005 is the latest event in the platter of Saregamapa. The show is hosted by ever energetic and vibrant ’’Apna’’ Shaan. The judges who would be the mentors of the show, are renowned music directors - Adesh Shrivastav, Ismail Darbar, Jatin - Lalit & Himesh Reshamiya. The chosen 32 would be divided in 4 groups and trained by the respective guru.
The auditions were conducted over 10 cities and 120 candidates short-listed. The chosen once arrived in Mumbai, where the mentors pruned to 48 candidates. Then, another filtering was done to arrive at 24 candidates. These 24 along with the 8 finalists of previous event, Fame 2005 compiled the fortunate 32. the entry of the 8 finalists - wild cards, was not cake walk, even they were made to compete with the stand bys.
By & large the selection process has been transparent and fair. However, I do have little grudge against the elimination of Ms. Sanchari Bose just on account of her age. After all Sunidhi Chauhan was the winner of ’’Meri Awaz Suno’’, first ever reality musical show on Indian TV, hosted by Annu Kapoor in DD. She was really young, must be of Sanchari’s age then. Before, I would comment further on this, I would like to see the episode of girls being divided in gharanas. After all Rajeev & Vishwas were given chance to prove their worth during division of gharanas for boys.
Saregamapa always show cases good talent and gives new voices to music industry. Kunal Ganjawala, Sanjeevini, Shreya Ghosal.... all are Saregamapa discoveries. Even this edition has given one already - Nihira Joshi offered a song by Himeshji.
Looking for an exciting & rocking challenge on cards....