An eight-year-old eagerly waits at the lobby of Hotel Savera. She’s missed her play practice, just so she can get a glimpse of her favourite singers, and hopefully a selfie too. The young crop of artistes from The Stage , one of the country’s first English singing talent hunts, already has a base of admirers. This includes Yatharth Ratnum (winner), and Rupin Pahwa, Kenishaa Francis, Anushka Shahaney and Soundarya Jayachandran — the top four contestants. They arrive exhausted — from Mumbai to Chennai, to radio stations, photo shoots and sound checks before their gig here, it’s been a whirl. A couple of them even missed lunch. So when we catch up, between mouthfuls of biryani, they admit it’s all been worth it.
“Strangers hug us and tell us they enjoyed our performances. It’s good to be appreciated,” says 27-year-old Rupin.
According to 26-year-old Kenishaa, “One of the best moments was when we were at NH7 and a family recognised us. They knew so much about us. Their daughter has never missed a single episode of ours.”
Since the country has had mostly singing competitions in regional languages, how different was it participating in The Stage ? “The big hurdle was our accents,” says Anushka (22) and adds, “When I speak I have a different accent, but when I sing, the accent in the song comes on naturally.”
So does that mean they have a different diction when they sing a song by Adele and another for Rihanna? “No, I realised I have a British accent. For example, when I say ‘can’t’ I naturally pronounce it the British way and it’s never the American way,” she laughs. “I guess accents also have got a lot to do with who we interact with on a regular basis,” says 19 year-old-Yatharth, the youngest of the group, who had also earlier participated in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa (a Hindi music contest) in 2009.
Most of them started singing even before they reached their pre-teens and are trained in Indian and western classical music. Performing to an audience isn’t new to them. Rupin and Kenishaa have their own bands back home, and they’ve all been performing gigs. At the sound check, they sing a number of hits by Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Adele… Not much into classical rock, but they are fans of ballads.
John Mayer, Alicia Keys and Beyonce are their favourites. They’ve got powerful voices, each distinctive with its own style. But they have one common goal — that of being famous crossover artists, with their roots in India.
(The top five performed at Bay 146 as part of The Stage Tour)
