| Address: Chennai, Tamil Nadu |
Date: 2/3/2015
To, Super Singer Junior Coordinators
Dear Sir,
Super Singer Junior 4 – Contests – Complaints, reviews & Suggestions
At the outset, I entirely agree with Ram Chandran on whatever he was suggested on 22.2.2015 towards selection of winners in Super Singer Junior contests, as per enclosure. After having viewed this program in Vijay TV for a no. of years, I thought I could add a few more suggestions, not only towards the selection of winners, but other aspects as well, as follows:-
1) Age Limit:
Date of Birth of each eligible candidate should be made public as well as the age limits. It should not be left vague such as “Between 6 & 14 years”. As long as the clear cutoff date is not given, it is subject to manipulations. As far as I know, except for Anushya & Spoorthi, all other finalists were over aged & Angelene was under aged (below 6 years as on 31.3.2014, when the notification was sent) Hari Priya had two year of births namely 2000 & 2001 & Shrisha told chief guest that she was 14 & Hari Priya said, “13 plus” & “Anal Akash 14” – all recently, while Shrisha, Anal Akash, Bharath & Jessica were all born in the year 1999, according to your own records. They all should have been rejected at application level itself and contestants like Monica, Shivani, Pravasti should have also been the finalists in their place. No doubt contestants such as Shrisha & Hari Priya sing beautifully, but can we call their voice “Chella Kural?” In fact Shrisha was recommended for recording because her voice has matured into a fully grown adult voice!
Further, I feel it is rather unfair to make a 6 year old like Angelene to complete with a voice broken Anal Akash. They can’t be put in the same category. I once noticed that after singing, Anal Akash lifted Angelene & carried her away on his shoulders! Can both of them be categorized in the same age group? Is it not injustice to our “Chella Kuzhandaigal?” The best solution would be make it 8 to 12 years or 13 years.
The advantages will be: -
(a) You can avoid several hundreds of Nursery School children visiting audition centre to have fun & play without possessing the least idea that they are supposed to compete in a singing competition. If you limit the chocolates to only those who sing, better sense will prevail in the crowd.
(b) You can make the zealous parents realize that this is a serious business & the candidates must possess some musicality & know a bit music grammar.
(c) As for boys who face the problem of voice breaking when they are at their peak form, it could be prevented by lowering the upper age limit to 12 or 13 from 14. This will enable the boys to compete with girls on a level field.
(d) By changing the age limit from 6 to 14 to 8 to 12, we can also prevent favouritism. (Example) a special concession was given to a 6 year old who went on to enter the top 10 & beyond without possessing the least idea of sangathy or thalam or shruthi. Whatever she sang was accepted without any remarks & the other candidates who had to complete with her were eliminated round after round. Is it not injustice to the other contestants? Further, this 6 year old when eliminated at last, was given a special privilege of entering the wild card level 3 selections by public voting, by passing level 1 & level 2 selections. If a 6 year old could be given all these concessions, an 8 year old too should have been given similar concession if & when she had to compete with 12 year old & above & so on? Is it possible? This is why I am saying that age should not be a criterion & to enable the younger ones to compete on level field with others, the group should be between 8 & 12 years old.
A few years back, the same panel of judges gave similar concessions to a 7 year old boy by inducting him into the list of finalists albeit he was eliminated in the earlier rounds. No explanation was given for the injustice done to the actual candidate who should have occupied his place & she too was only 10years old. This smart looking boy, being an otherwise popular candidate with his dancing & magic talents etc, got more public votes than even the ultimate winner, which was a shock to one & all. Fortunately, we were told that the winner got more Judges’ votes & hence, was declared the winner. However, the same set of Judges who are on job now do not appear to have learnt from their mistakes. Imagine the situation if that 6 year old child were to become the winner this year by public votes, purely due to unfair & biased methods employed by the Judges to favour the youngest child all the time ignoring merits – at one stroke, Super Singer program would have lost it’s popularity, despite best efforts.
2) Public Voting vis–a–vis Judges Voting: -
Despite my above remarks, I must concede here that, but for these small favours, our Judges are knowledgeable, reputed, loyal to their profession, possess high integrity, experienced, compassionate & sympathetic. I have closely watched all their decisions & by & large, some could be debated but there again, two people can’t agree on everything. We have umpteen number of such knowledgeable musicians with high integrity & honesty who are loyal to their profession, in Chennai itself. When we possess such great legends in our kitty, why go in for public voting & invite trouble by wrong choices by public by way of selecting candidates for reasons other than Music? Public will be swayed by the contestants’ background, caste, community, religion, age, looks, state, country, mother tongue, attitude, health, approach & so on & none of these factors are relevant for the selection. If public is allowed to vote by SMS & online alone, it will lead to biasness because the contestant who has technical & electronic resources will cast thousands votes repeatedly.International contestants can potentially employ people to send votes using computers & smart phones. Interestingly, this year the winner & the runner up have better financial background compared to the other competitors. This may explain why the results got corrupted.
On the contrary, if a candidate like Senthilnathan was fielded as finalist by special concession as done in the past, music would have taken a backseat & public would have voted him as winner. This is why public voting should be discouraged.
3) “Tamizhagathin Chella Kural”: -
We have now taken care to ensure that we select only “Chella Kural” by keeping upper limit to 12. Now coming to “Tamizhagam”, why should it be only Tamil Nadu? This is a Tamizh program & so, only Tamil songs are allowed, fine. But why should there be restriction on any one singing Tamil songs? He could be a Telugu, Malayali or North Indian or any one. We are bothered only about his Tamil pronounciation & not his mother tongue. In fact, by permitting all candidates to sing in Tamizh, you will be doing service to our mother tongue, as Tamizh will spread everywhere.
It is a sad commentary that you propagated it as “Tamizhagathin Chella Kural” throughout the year but got no pure Tamizhagathu candidate among winners – Therefore, it is better to eliminate the slogan “Tamizhagathin Chella Kural” from now on. However, the mother tongue of each & every candidate should be let known in advance so as to enable viewers to watch out for their Tamizh pronounciation closely. Singer Spoorthi, I am afraid, got away with some awful Tamizh pronounciations, especially in the earlier rounds, courtesy all three permanent judges, who were over keen on finding faults with Tamilan Singers but ignored Spoorthy’s mistakes, deliberately, such as swallowing words in between,
breathing problem, shouting & missing shruthi at times. Finally she managed to even win the title & become possession of “Tamizhar alladhavargalin Chella Kural!” The judges must realize that they can’t have a favourite candidate & ignore all her mistakes while discouraging other Tamil candidates by pin pointing their minor mistakes. This set of Judges did not care for Tamil pronounciations for obvious reasons
4) Awarding Marks Each Round: -
For every chocolate / flower / teddy bear shower, one mark could be added & for every danger zone / lifeline performance, one mark could be reduced. For the best performance in a round, two marks can be added besides a cash award & for the next best, one mark plus a smaller cash award can be given on a regular basis, as done this time. Marks secured by each candidate in every round as well as cumulative total marks secured till that particular round can be announced along with elimination so that some transparency could be introduced which will help the contestants & their guardians gain confidence in the judges’ evaluation. Judges also will not be able to show partiality or
favouritism. Contestants who have secured low marks cumulatively will prepare better as this procedure will serve them as warning.
It is imperative that some effort is made to create some confidence in the minds of contestants, their parents & the Vijay TV viewers, after the current debacle when the confidence, faith & belief on the judges have taken a nose dive. One should not forget the fact that unlike other routine reality shows in all TV channels including Vijay, the prize at stake here is huge & contestants and their people put in extra ordinary hard work for nearly 1 year scarifying their education, time, money, other activities & so on.
Other aspects: -
a) International candidates: - It has been observed that some international candidates (Ex. – Shradda from Canada, Shalini, Sunanda from U.S. & Pragathi from U.S. last time) were allowed to join the mainstream halfway through the program. This act of the management demoralizes the local candidates who have been toiling & moiling, leaving studies & school, etc to single-mindedly concentrate on your program & to win the title, not to speak of their parents who also have to sacrifice their routine life for this purpose. The cumulative mark procedure, if followed, will automatically prevent midstream entry.
Another aspect which warrants your attention is second time participants. They have a clear & unfair advantage, I thought. Perhaps for the second attempt, upper age limit could be lowered by a year.
b) Anchors: -
The behavior of a particular female Anchor left much be desired. Presuming that she has a sense of humour, she was going beyond limits & making herself cheap. She has no business to tease the contestants, sometime just before the contestant starts singing. It certainly distracts the children. Forcing reluctant parents to dance, cracking cheap jokes with the V.I.P. guests etc should be totally condemned because these are done in the presence of growing children. She should be made to realize that this is an important stage for the contestants & they & their parents need to be completely focused.
Talking to parents & extracting information about their family, bringing them to the stage are unwarranted. This is a singing competition for children & people will vote for children & not parents. If need be, parents can talk from his / her seat about their child’s music & music only. Sometimes, if parents are encouraged to talk more, they could influence the judges. We have seen them talking emotionally with sentiments to gain sympathy votes.
c) Votes polled by individuals: -
As regards counting of votes, I have already mentioned that I am in total agreement with Mr. Ram Chandran, Cary, NC 27519, U.S.A. & the single judge would be Mr. Ananth Vaidyanathan, I am sure. I am saying this because, right through the entire process, not a single objectionable word was spoken by him. Not once did he criticize a candidate or scold but taught all of them whatever he could do, with utmost care. He was trying to unearth talent even in someone
who was totally rejectable & encouraged all candidates without an exception. Candidates improved by leaps & bounds under his tution, within a year. I am sure majority of the people will swear by him if he is made the judge. One clear proof that he was above board, honest & unbiased can be seen from Vijay TV complaints on SSJ 04. Not a single complaint on him from among thousands or remarks! Why go for someone else when have the best teacher available? After all, all candidates acknowledge the fact that he is the best teacher. I am sure all children without exception would say that they gained more from him than by way of awards.
d) Competition Results: -
Needless to mention, the results were shocking. They are shocking to that extend that the common public lost complete confidence in Vijay TV management. The main reason for the public to lose confidence in you is your reluctance to let people know the breakup of the 1.5 Crores of votes polled. This act of yours made people suspect something fishy. They felt cheated. You can’t ask for public votes & not divulge the results. Even if you announce the results later on, public won’t accept it. They would say that they have all been manipulated to suit your favourite candidates. Otherwise, why should there be any delay in announcing the votes secured by individual singer?
It is clear that, in order to make the judges’ favourite candidate Spoorthi win the competition, the judges would have thought of polling their marks in her favour, in the event of her getting some votes short in public voting but found that some other candidate Jessica had amassed enormous no. of votes rather unexpectedly which could not be equalled or overtaken by Spoorthi even if all the judges poll their votes / marks in Spoorthy’s favour. This is why they
ignored the public votes and they announced the results without divulging the individual votes polled.
Then, after having ignored the public votes completely, the judges must have decided to place Jessica second much against their wish but to satisfy the Jessica supporters who would otherwise smell something fishy here. Judges also had in mind Hari Priya & were under the fond hope that either Spoorthi or Hari Priya would come first & the other, second. In case if one falls short of some votes, they could poll their votes / marks. But now that they have ignored
the public votes totally altogether, they announced Hari Priya as 2nd runner up, their choice. However, all those who polled more votes than Hari Priya got nothing, except 5 Lakhs & Hari Priya got 10 Lakhs. The big joke is that Anushya got more votes than even Spoorthi but she was not their favourite, may be because she was a winner from a competitor’s channel, a few years back.
As I have already written, if international candidates are allowed to participate in Super Singer & only a single one of them remains in the top 10, they have the resources to poll (in divisive) several Lakhs of votes using their modern electronic gadgets & win. This is what Jessica’s people did both during wild card entry & during the grand finale. This is why I suggested a complete ban on public votes. If the prize money is 70 Lakhs, people will go to any extent to win it. I am told that a software could be developed to vote exclusively for one candidate, any no. of times.
We all know that Jessica was in the danger zone in the very first episode in June’14 & subsequently on four occasions, sometimes on 1:1 basis in the last place on the verge of elimination. Even after the wild card program, she was the last to be selected among the 5 at level 3. However, her presence was felt when the public voted. Judges were not happy at all when she polled more votes than Shrisha & Anushya because they were better candidates. Anushya’s & Shrisha’s supporters were voting for their singing ability, musicality, voice etc while Jessica’s supporters were voting for Eezham sentiment. If the other candidate from Canada, Shradda had been there as a lone Tamil candidate from Canada she would have won it with the help of sentimental votes. After all, they were not voting for the candidate but for their political reasons & the music has become a casuality.
So, the voting results were not only not to public satisfaction but to Judges’ satisfaction as well. Only Spoorthi is the beneficiary & the one to lose heavily in this tug of war is Anushya a 9 year old middle class Tamilian girl, youngest among the contestants who secured second best votes after the above political votes. The only mistake she committed is that she is neither an international candidate nor Judge’s favourite. However, I am sure she is the
best contestant – I am not saying this but the votes she secures will tell. In a few years from now, she will rock the music industry. Please see what Subha 123 has to say about the program which I agree entirely, copy attached.
As for others, Hari Priya was the best, secured maximum sympathy from the Judges, got several 50, 000/- awards for the best singer awards for a no. of rounds, only to be betrayed by the same set of judges who encouraged her because they found a Spoorthi as Hari Priya was becoming overconfident. Shrisha was good, very good in fact but too good for juniors, I thought. She should been singing in the studios. Entering a junior program for the second time despite being over aged was a mistake. In fact, apart from Anushya & Spoorthi, the other finalists should have been Monica, Pravasti & Shivani. As far as I am concerned, injustice has been done to all the five contestants mentioned above
by permitting over aged contestants, some of them for a second time.
Onelast word before I close this letter. The judges must realize that they can’t vote or give marks capriciously. They are responsible for the career prospects of the children. Nor can they select a candidate without any basis. The company has a noble ideal & they should carry it out Spoorthy’s selection has no basis. She neither got maximum votes nor her Tamizh pronounciation was approved by knowledgeable people. For example, see the special song sung by her in
January “Vidukadhaiyaa Indha Vazhkai” she sings “Madiyuma” for “Mudiyuma”, “Vidutharuvar” for “Vidaitharuvar” & “Adipadhavo” for Adipadhuvo & so on but no judge objected to or pointed it out. In the beginning stages she was permitted time to recover from illness, come back & sing while other equally good or even better Tamil singers were eliminated. In the semifinals, Sai Charan deliberately permitted himself to be defeated by singing badly so that she could enter as direct finalist. I am not the only stating it but Mano himself made this remark openly. The casuality was Shrisha. To compensate, Shrisha was entered as finalist through the back door & promised cine chances in two places. For Bharat too, the same was offered by Dhanush & the net result is that every finalist got something except
Anushya, the youngest contestant, who could sing any song at any scale & has proved it so many times. I do not know why irrelevant factors & background play such a major part even in music & why a Tamizh child should be treated so very shabbily, despite securing the highest no. of votes for music & music alone.
“Ellam Inba Maim”
Prem, Chennai
