Vijay out of "Jai Ho" Oscars limelight

''Jai Ho'' has won an Oscar for A.R. Rahman and Gulzar, hence making India proud. While the entire country is singing the song and Sukhwinder Singh, the man who originally sung the number behind the mike, is basking in its glory as well, there is a man who is missing out on all the action. He goes by the name of Vijay Prakash, who is incidentally one of the four singers that were roped in by A.R. Rahman for the song, the other two being Tanvi Shah and Mahalaxmi Iyer.

"I don't have any regrets though", says Vijay Prakash who has been contributing to the Bollywood music scene for close to a decade now and is slowly but steadily making his presence felt, "Sukhwinderji is a fantastic singer and a very well known person. It happens and I don't blame anyone for not being in the limelight. As an audience, when you are listening to a song, you tend to stick to one individual whom you probably know and hence can identify with."

Contrary to misconception, Vijay hasn't been roped in as a backup vocalist for the mentioned number. Instead he has sung the portion ''Jai Ho'' that takes a high pitch at numerous junctures of the song. Ironically though, in each of the award function worldwide, whenever ''Jai Ho'' is played, it is his portion from the song that is played.

Smiles Vijay, "That's true, the echo is sung by me though the main song belongs to Sukhwinderji. However, Rahman sir has always been on a forefront when it comes to giving credit to his team. In some of the speeches made by him at award functions, he has named not just Gulzar saab but even me. Now that's an award in itself for me."

After years of being around on the Bollywood circuit, and singing in movies like Yuvvraaj (Manmohini) and Cheeni Kum (title song), Vijay Prakash is happy that his hard work is finally fetching him some good recognition.

"Of course, the name Sukhwinder Singh is much bigger and hence the name Vijay Prakash was perhaps relegated to the background. However, now that I am a part of an Oscar winning song, people have been taking notice. I am sure Tanvi and Mahalaxmi too will get due credit for their work in the song. ''Jai Ho'' reaching at such a level is indeed quite big at this stage of my career", he says with a grin.

Any regrets that he couldn't walk the red carpet and be on stage when the award was announced? "I won't deny that", says Vijay, "I did wish if I was there but then considering the fact that Mr. Sukhwinder himself wasn't there, I didn't have any reason to feel overtly disappointed. Yes, the dream situation would have been for all us singers to be there on stage and perform live in front of a global audience. But that's ok, some other day, some other time."

Congratulate Oscar winning musician A.R. Rahman