The Karachi auditions for Sur ki Baazi, the upcoming singing talent-hunt show of the Geo Television Network featuring Atif Aslam and Himesh Reshammiya, ended amid much excitement and heartbreak on Wednesday.
Hundreds of young boys and girls from all over the city were at a hotel in DHA. Since it was the last day of auditions, by 10am, the roads leading to the auditorium were packed.
The organizers also had a tough time dealing with the crowd which mainly included gelled-up boys and dolled-up girls accompanied by their parents. The crowd rushed to the venue in cars, rickshaws and bikes which were hastily parked on the road.
For some it was an opportunity of a lifetime. But for most, it was a chance to appear on Geo Television Network and ‘show’ their ‘hidden talent’.
“I reached at 9:30am, and I managed to reach this far,” said Usman Haider, who was still a few batches behind in the queue as contestants were taken inside the gate in batches of 8-10 at a time.
Usman came to the audition with four of his friends. They claim to have a band. Strumming a guitar and singing at the top of their voices, the band looked anything but bored. Most of the crowd was also busy taking pictures with their cell phones in addition to rehearsing for the audition.
But the atmosphere in the waiting lounge was quite different. As contestants entered in batches and waited for their turns to face the judges, they turned calm and poised. In low voices, dallying at the lobby or sitting on the sofas, they would listen to one another and critique the quality of their voices and the grip on techniques.
The lead vocalist of the band Suroor, Mohammed Ali, was one of the judges. When a contestant got on stage, he was given a mike to show off his/her talent. Ali listened to them patiently and applauded most of them. And this is how the show went on.
Contestants mainly sang songs by Atif Aslam, Kailash Kher, Sonu Nigam and Shaan. Those who touched a chord or showed a glimmer of potential were also encouraged to sing “something else”, in order to show their versatility.
“I do see flickers of talent after every few minutes, but most of them need solid grooming, to begin with,” said Ali.
On the other hand, most of the trained singers, who had pursued singing as their passion, were put off by the crowd. “I don’t understand why so many of these people took the trouble to come so early,” said 23-year-old Arif Alvi, who claims to have been singing for the past eight years in various local shows. Listening to some of these performances, one would ponder over Arif’s words.
Sajjad Michael, a self-proclaimed Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan of his generation, had memorised the ‘sargam’ of Khan Sahib’s classical number ‘kisi da yaar na vichre’, which he pulled off reasonably. When the judge asked him to try something else, he sang ‘main hun don’ from the Bollywood movie Don, causing the waiting contestants to explode into fits of laughter.
But Sajjad did not give up. Much to their surprise, he managed to fuse the rhythm of Khan Sahib’s ‘sargam’ into the Bollywood song, forcing the judge to make him stop.
The atmosphere was electric. Many singers were patted and shortlisted for the final round but, inevitably, most of them were shown the door.
