Indian Idol contestant wins judges' heart in the gala round

Friday, August 31, 2007

Mumbai (UNI): After the exit of Meiyang Chang from 'Indian Idol 3', four contestants are left in the fray fighting for the coveted title.

The tenth 'Gala Round' boasted of superlative performances from the contestants --Emon Chatterjee, Amit Paul, Prasant Tamang and Ankita Mishra. With each contestant having to perform on any two compositions from the ones suggested by the judges, the show turned out to be a treat.

Amit Paul set the exciting tone for the evening with his opening song ''Dil Kya Kare'' from the hit film Julie, which led judge Javed Akhtar to remark that ''Amit's train on the Indian Idol track has taken off and is gathering momentum.''

Prashant Tamang's rendition of ''Kuch Na Kaho'' from the film 1947 : A Love Story was proof of his immense improvement in the past weeks. He followed it up with ''O Mere Dil Ke Chain'' and proved that he could well be the dark horse of Indian Idol 3.

Ankita once again stole the show with her two thunderous performances. Emon's soulful singing of the title track of Kal Ho Na Ho went down well with everybody, except Javed Akhtar who pointed out that he was sounding like Sonu Nigam. Emon proved him completely wrong with his very next performance, a Kishore Kumar number, ''Dilbar Mere'' vindicating Anu Malik's stand that Emon is a singer par excellence. Sharman Joshi and Kunal Khemu were also present as special guests on the music show.