And..

I won the Best Female Playback singer for Varayo Varayo this year at the Vijay awards. This award was presented more than 3 weeks ago but thought it would be better to write about it after the telecast. All credit for this award goes to Harris sir alone and huge shout out thank-you to Red Giant movies. 

I remember Ravikumar sir announcing at the audio launch that his personal favorite is Varayo. Felt extremely grateful to him then and continue to do so.  And yeah the award is kinda heavy. Very heavy in fact.It would easily weigh some 7 kilos or something

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF8fE984oCo&feature=player_embedded#!

P.S.: I was mighty tired that day and was coming straight after the final day of the shoot schedule of Sangeeta Maha Yuddham. Most of us from the team had gotten some sort of a fever and that added up to it. Hope that explains :)

Sangeeta Maha Yuddham on Sun TV from June 26th

And this is the show I am hosting. And not anything else, thank you very much :)

The press release was today and hence according to protocol, I can speak about the show. If you have watched Music ka Maha Muqabla on Star Plus, this is more or less the same thing, albeit in Tamil. 

The show will have 6 teams captained by playback singers Vijay Yesudas, Devan Ekambaram, Madhu Balakrishnan, Mathangi, Srilekha Parthasarathy and Anupama. 

Every team will compete with the others in the round-robin method and each episode will see two teams compete against each other. The teams will have their respective captains and 3 players. The 4 captains that are not playing on the said day, become the judges of the other two teams' performance/competition.  Hence we have the singers becoming competitors in one episode and judges in another. 

The schedules have been awesome fun and working with the man who started it all, or rather brought music shows to Indian TV, Mr. Gajendra Singh has been an enriching, learning experience. He is the pioneer behind Antakshari and Sa Re Ga Ma from which most of the music shows in South Indian television were inspired. Shall take some pictures in the next schedule and post them here. And to answer another set of questions, yes I am going to be singing in these episodes too, (non competitively of course) quite unlike Super Singer.

So every Saturday and Sunday 9:30 PM, Sangeeta Maha Yuddham on Sun TV. Watch it if you can. 

(Saw the promo today and felt I sounded a bit loud though I hadn't upped my voice level that much. I always had that feeling when I was hosting Super Singer too. Don't know what they do with the balancing that make it shout out)

The Audio Launch of Lamhaa

in Mumbai was a new experience for me. For one, it happened in a mall. I hear a couple of movies before that had had their audio launch in a mall before but I am not sure if they performed there. But we did. A stage was set up in the atrium of Oberoi mall and there we were getting the sound check done in front of an audience and finally the performance.

My sojourn in Mumbai lasted 3 days and quite some hectic activity, thankfully. I guess if I hadn't had much to do I would not have been too happy with the excess time on my hands and maybe as I have mentioned before I am not a shopping enthusiast. Now that I have picked up some major interest in baking I had made a note of what I needed and what some friends needed which I successfully picked up very close to the home I was staying in there. I would perhaps love a personal shopper like the character portrayed by Cameron Diaz in 'In Her Shoes'. Not that I do much of it now. Anyway, I am digressing. It was great to catch up with Mithoon after all this while and he is more of a spiritually elevated soul now as I noticed. And what an album. Completely in love with it. Here are some pictures from the launch. Do have a listen to the album and if you are downloading, do so legally :)

Back to hosting on TV

again. After a good hiatus. And am loving this new show. We had a rollicking but grueling schedule last week after which I thought I was ever going to feel my feet, what with all the standing in stilettos all the while. Nevertheless, it was a super fun schedule and shall keep thee updated on what the show is and when it shall be aired and on which channel.

Lamhaa - Madhno / Saajna

2008 August was when I sang for this brilliant composer called Mithoon. I had met him for the first time then. After a few phone calls, Mithoon and his wonderful, illustrious father Sri Naresh Sharma were here in Chennai. After speaking with them I sang the song which turned out to be quite a long session. There were technical difficulties, power cuts that lasted more than a couple of hours and the recording experience was absolutely beautiful and I happened to blog this just after I came back home. I still remember the words forming in my mind while I was coming back. 

When I heard the track of this song for the first time at the studio I had to fight tears. It was soul stirring to say the least and it really hit me. Unfortunately for Mithoon it turned out to be quite embarrassing. He turned and asked, "Do you have a cold?" Would you be able to sing today? or something like that.. And I honestly said the song is beautiful and it really moved me. Later he told me that he found that very strange, for someone he was coming across for the first time and then almost crying to his song. Mithoon came across as a highly spiritually advanced human being and he should have been a highly  precocious child. Small Wonder though. If I am not mistaken he started composing for films at 17.  He should be about 23 now. Needless to say after I got back home I googled him and heard his music and there began a great admiration for his music. Soulful and divine I thought, his Maula Mere, Tere Bin and the songs in his album Tu Hi Mere Rab Ki Tarha Hai.

Here is the trailer of Lamhaa featuring the song. The audio releases second week of June.