Punjabi Antenna
Flogging the musical horse
Randeep Wadehra

Punjabi music industry is attracting varied talent – there are those who have taken training in classical music and later branched into light classical and folk, while others have, rather prematurely, jumped into the fray in a sink-or-swim effort to make it big. And, then there are those who are talented but have a laidback attitude towards marketing their wares.

Gulraj Toor belongs to the last category. If his debut album Sohnee Badee is any indication, he is gifted with a smooth, well-trained voice and is well versed with the intricacies of music. He has been taking lessons in classical music from maestro Pramod Kaura and instrumentalist Sardar Buta Singh. Although he sings folksongs with gusto, his style and voice are more suitable to ghazals and sad songs rather than to energetic, fast-tempo numbers. However, he has made little effort to promote himself even as his second music album is getting ready for release. Groomed for the civil services, he chose media as his career. He has held senior positions in a couple of nascent Punjabi channels. However, creativity remains his first love. He is at present working on producing a biopic on Shiv Batalvi.

Ridka on road seems to be going off-track. Earlier its anchor used to visit Punjabi celebrities’ homes and give us a glimpse of their public as well as private lives. Then it started visiting foreign lands to show us how Punjabis preserve their culture in alien environs. Now, its makers appear to have run out of ideas and steam. Like many other shows on Punjabi channels, Ridka`85too has jumped onto the music bandwagon, conducting its own version of auditions to unearth singing talent. Now this is the umpteenth such ‘project’. Either Punjab has suddenly become a land of blooming singers or the channels find it cheaper to earn TRPs without having to draw on the grey matter. When programmers and producers can’t come up with fresh ideas, they begin to flog the musical horse, which refuses to die. Height of stoicism? Right. But on the part of the musical horse that refuses to die despite the flogging.

One more channel claiming to be different is on the anvil at the time of writing this piece. It promises to offer news-cum-entertainment, and is going to be a bilingual (Hindi-Punjabi) affair. Apart from music, the entertainment slot will have sitcoms and soaps too! Headquartered at Ludhiana, it is purported to be a ‘national’ channel – whatever that means – and is named Channel Number One. A bit too ambitious? Let us wait and watch.

The judges of ETC Punjabi’s music competition Punjab da Superstar (the Jalandhar episode telecast on November 5) appeared to be more than encouraging towards the participants. One noticed Atul Sharma actually giving tips to a girl when she seemed to falter while singing. However, the anchor Sudesh Lehri was the real superstar of the show with his funny takes on famous singers, and excellent stage presence.