17-08-07

Chinnamma Chilakkamma

Theme: Dance Songs!

Ok, so let's get started with 'Chinnamma, Chilakkamma.'  This song was superbly sang, Raja's powerful voice is just phenomenal, I love the way he performed with such feeling and emotion, and I must admit that I didn't realise that anything was wrong, until the end, when Shekhar started commenting on Raja's performance...See below for more of what happened!

  Chinnamma Chilakkamma - Fantastic Comments By V.S!

One of the qualities I absolutely loved about Vishal-Shekhar is that they weren't afraid to express themselves honestly, even when their own students were doing wrong.  Here, Shekhar chides Raja for writing lyrics on his hand and tells him to avoid doing this in the future.  (Although I must point out that Raja is not the only artist who did this in Saregamapa 2007, Junaid also did it in the 'Qawwali' special, which aired in August 2007, but, he was lucky enough not to get caught!)  I was also very surprised that both Ismail and HR had absolutely nothing to say in regards to this matter!  (What makes me laugh is that irrespective of this, the audience still chants loudly for Raja, like he is their idol/hero!)

Then after Shekhar had made his point, Vishal states that Raja needs to start working on singing more versatile songs, which move away from the 'Sukhwinder Singh' and 'Kailash Kher' tag that he has been branded with.  Raja takes all of this info on board, and in his future performances, you can see his progress chart improve dramatically!

In this episode, we also had the opportunity to see Raja go back to his hometown of Rajasthan.  This was a very heart-warming experience for him, please click 'here' if you want to see this clip again!

**IMPORTANT NOTE***

A few months after Saregamapa 2007 had ended, Raja appeared on Saregamapa lil champs and disclosed that he hadn't actually written lyrics on his hands at all, he had actually written the names of the people that he loved the most, because he wasn't feeling particularly great that day, so he thought that by doing so, it would bring him good luck, but, unfortunately the experience went horribly wrong!  Well, Raja - I am glad that we have cleared that up for you!