I was witless when I
heard him singing that song as his final performance at The Stage, and I think,
it was the song that added a winning feather to his cap and helped him in clinching
away the India’s First English Singing Talent Hunt trophy. The Colour infinity
had started this hunt with 20 awesome singers from all over India and on Sunday
it came to an end with last episode having three finalists, Kamakshi Rai from
Pune, Soundarya Jayachandran from
Bangalore and Yatharth Ratnum from Varanasi.
Hosted
by Shibani Dandekar, “The Stage” featured musicians Vishal Dadlani, Monica
Dogra, Ehsaan Noorani and Devraj Sanyal, managing director and CEO at Universal
Music Group, South Asia, as the jury panel.
Yatharth’s selection of
song certainly made it a bit easy for him, otherwise it was a very difficult
take for judges and Soundarya seemed taking it away. The song, coincidentally one
of my favourite songs, was ‘Say something I am giving up on you’, a song by A
Great Big World and initially sung by Ian Axel. But it became worldwide hit
after Christina Aguilera collaborated on it.
 |
| Yatharth Ratnum |
A slow-tempo indie pop piano ballad, which talks about a
breakup, moved every one. Long before Yatharth finished his song, the judges
seemed sure he was going to win it. He was the youngest in three finalists and
only boy that too from a small town, which has never been on the Indian or
international map for western music, leave aside singing in English.
 |
| Soundarya Jayachandran |
Yatharth’s has been an unbelievable journey. But he had been very confident since
beginning, Vishal sometimes called him daring and tharki because every time he
came on the stage he sprung a surprise for them.
 |
| Kamakshi Rai |
It has not been first platform for Yatharth. He is a trained
musician, basically in classical music and has participated in Sa Re Ga Ma Li’l
Champs in 2009, where he had to content with being a runner up. In an interview
to The Asian Age, about his experience in previous reality show, Yatharth says,
‘it got me habituated to the pressure. Reality shows make you strong and
nothing can shake you after that.”
It has certainly given hope to English listeners and singers
as the number of English speaking people is on the rise in India. What is
surprising that we have so many talented and brilliant English singers and at
the same time it makes us uncomfortable that their talents have remained
untapped. Hope it is a beginning of a
long journey.
