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With the advent of these ‘Talent Hunt’ shows we are able to see the budding artists. They have got a platform to showcase their mettle. We have heard the singers like Abhijeet Sawant, Amit Sana, Rahul Vaidya, Prajkta Shukre, Sandeep, Vinit, Nihira Joshi, Ishmeet, Raja, Poonam, Ujjaini, Himani, Karunya, Debojit etc etc... the list goes on… They all have been a part of the singing talent hunts like Indian Idol, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and Star Voice of India. They all got a chance to make their own music albums and some were lucky enough to get a chance for playback singing in the movies.

Like Abhijeet got his first break in Aashiq Banaya Aapne (Himesh Reshammiya) with the song, “Mar Jaawan….”
Amit Sana proved himself in the movie ‘Kalyug’ with a duo with Anuradha Paudwal.

Rahul Vaidya and Prajkta Shukre in the movies Shaadi No . 1, (Anu Malik) the song called... “Hello Madam... I am your Adam….”

Nihira Joshi, who has been my favorite, got a chance to hum ‘tin-tinak-tin-tin-tin na…..’ that comes in the beginning of the song “Dhadak dhadak…” in the movie Bunty Aur Babli (Shakar- Ehsaan- Loy). Then the same music director gave her a chance to sing with Shaan in the movie ‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ for the song “Mera dil dil mera…” She was also asked to sing for Aadesh Shrivastav’s music in the movie ‘Alag’ for the multi starred song – “Le ke dil lamha tanhayee ka…” along withShaan, Kunal Ganjawala, Hemachandran and Ujjaini from Sa Re Ga Ma Pa again.

There are upcoming movies with singers like Raja also coming up. These were some of the talents who were giving the maximum chance and have come to lime-light.

Let me tell you about the talent hunt foray into the field of acting. It was an initiative taken by Zee TV which organized the Zee Cine Star ki Khoj Contest. This has happened just twice so far. The second one wasn’t so successful but the first one was the best. It started off from the scratch of acting, dance, music, modeling and everything. There were three judges, Satish Kaushik, Mahesh Manjarekar and Ken Ghosh. They were the best ones there to judge and the man behind the whole thing, Sudhir Mishra himself. It was a promise made by him to the two winning stars that they would be signed for a movie soon. There were hundreds of contestants who were called to Mumbai and then every week the scrutiny continued. It was a place where they were taught as to what must be done to look like an actor on the silver screen. This went on and on and was also very interesting. There were some 15 contestants left. They were of course not less than anybody as they had come till the last stage. I must say that they have all got a good chance now in the industry. It was a talent hunt conducted in 2004-2005.

- To begin with the winners, Aditi Sharma and Sarvar Ahuja who were the winners of this show. Aditi Sharma made her debut in the movie ‘Black and White’. Sarvar is yet to be seen.
- The runners up Shraddha Arya and Mohit. Shraddha has been seen in many Ad’s like Scooty pep and she made her debut in the movie ‘ Nishabd’ as Amitabh’s daughter. She was also seen in Debojit’s debut music album. Mohit is still invisible.
- Then came the beauty and the queen of hearts, Yuvika Choudhary who has been in the cover pages of various fashion magazines, has been a part of music videos, Ad’s , serials like ‘ Astitva- Ek Prem Kahani’, recently seen as Dolly in ‘ Om Shanti Om’ and now her full fledged so called-her debut movie- opposite Sikander Kher is ‘ Summer 2007’. The music seems good as there is also a female lyricist called Ujjaini Roy who is into light.
- In the same way the others like, Preeti Amin has been seen in the daily soaps and the famous video album of Kailash Kher, ‘Teri Deewani....’
- Amrita Khandvalkar in a daily soap that used to go on in Star One.
- Abbas was seen in Astitva again and also in ‘Mohalla Mohabbat wala’.
- Abhishek, the so called boyfriend cum choreographer of Rakhi Sawant has set his life rolling.
- Sudeepa Singh has been a part of serials again. These were some who have been spotted but I feel after 3 years they have got something. No body from the top 15 has been left unnoticed. All have been a part of this industry. After seeing this I felt that this was one talent show which genuinely brought out talent to the platform and paved ways for them. They all have a long way to go still!