What's wrong with the likes of Abhijit Sawant?

Recently Lata Mangeshkar said in an interview that television channels should not be hosting music competitions like Indian idol and saregama. She thinks it gives a wrong message to youngsters by giving them a taste of success without deserving it. ‘Where is Abhijeet Sawant today?’ she asks. I’d like to answer that. Lataji, for your information Abhijit Sawant’s latest number “Junoon” is reigning the charts these past few weeks. It’s a mind blowing song. If it hadn’t been for these competitions many such talented youngsters would not have got an opportunity to step out of their small town hovels and get a taste of the big league. But perhaps Lataji’s opinion is not hard to understand. The two Mangeshkar sisters were notorious in the 70s and 80s for going out of their way to discourage any newcomer in the filmy playback scene. They had such a stranglehold on the Bombay cinema world that any music director who dared to disobey would be ostracized. Remember Runa Laila? The Bangladeshi with the awesome voice managed only a couple of C-grade movie songs after months of hanging around the studios. Do you wonder why those two decades could not throw up any new female voice in the music scene? It was either Lata or Asha. It was only when people like Gulshan Kumar came and challenged their monopoly that singers like Alka Yagnik and Kavita Krishnamoorthi made it big and others followed.
Lata and Asha may be great doyens but they hated competition. Today, thankfully, it’s a much more open system out there. If you’ve got talent then the cliff is yours to climb, and if you have the tenacity then you get to hang around at the top. Abhijeet Sawant will survive if he has what it takes to do so. Music lovers like me for one are glad Indian idol brought him (it was a tedious and long drawn programme though and I only watched a couple of them). The television channels may have done a lot of damage but this is one good thing that has definitely come of it.