Duped into dazzle
Anandita Gupta

Media’s brightest spotlights, pulsating music and beaming lights — this ramp seems to have it all. And suddenly, the arc lights and the whirring cameras go into frenzy. For, strutting on the ramp are some gorgeous male models, seemingly walking straight out of a fairytale. Flaunting a sprightly gait, they walk with élan, stop to pose and display the right attitude in good measure. Smiles intact, each facial muscle in place and body language that proclaims: “I am beautiful. I own the world”.

The city’s had its Aryan Vaids & Jatin Grewals but it’s still a bumpy ride down the model road

Welcome to the world of beauty pageants. Page 3 might have taken a leap to Page 1, beauty pageants may be happening every Saturday, but the fact remains that the big players in the business still hold a lot of glamour for all of us. So, when it comes to spending lakhs on acquiring a perfectly chiselled body for the Gladrags Mega Model Hunt, city youngsters don’t really mind. In fact, boys in town are not just falling in love with the ramp, but willing to give these pageants all they have. We slip into a local modelling school and take a sneak peak into these ramp-obsessed boys’ tears and fears, pains and gains, difficulties and dilemmas.

“What most of us get to see on the telly is glamour-laced finales of beauty pageants — faces writ with excitement, high energy levels and perfect make-up and hair. But what goes on in the dark corners backstage is totally different — contestants grappling with their attire, last minute preening and nerve-wrecking anxiety about the question-and-answer round. “There’s no scope for even a dint of nervousness – everything’s being beamed live on television throughout the country! So, one has to prepare to handle all this pressure,” says 19-year-old Gursimran Brar, who has already started preparing for Gladrags, Grasim and Mr World pageants for the year 2010.

This youngster is already into cardio muscular and body building workouts, a protein-rich diet, playing tennis, swimming, reading up on fashion and international trends. But preparations aside, there’s a greater pressure to handle, “Everybody talks about casting couch for women in the show biz industry. But believe me, young boys are exploited too. Many fashion pundits and photographers are homosexuals. So, the ladder that leads to the world of modelling is full of risk,” he confesses.

Agrees Kanwar Inder Singh Rai, a 6’-1” Gladrags Mega Model Manhunt aspirant, “Walking on a grand stage and preparing to face thousands who scrutinise your each move and action, is in fact the easy part. However, Chandigarh being a relatively small town is not very exposed to the fashion world. So, the glamour-struck aspirants are easily taken for a ride. For example, the same Gladrags Mega Model Manhunt contest forms, which are easily available for Rs 70 are being sold to some naïve aspirants at Rs 2,000 each.”

What’s more, most of these boys don’t believe in attending a few workshops here and there. “Besides working on the body, there are subtle things like skin care, a thorough knowledge about style and fashion, and yes, hairstyling. So though the city has places specialising in various workshops, we are looking for a complete package,” opines 25-year-old Rishabh Sharma and his 26-year-old friend Anshul Bhatia. Both have dreamt of walking the ramp since childhood.

“Nobody minds shelling out anything between Rs 20,000 and 40,000 to enroll in a modelling school,” tells another aspiring model, Rajbir Singh. “But the problem lies with the modelling schools in town. Though most of them advertise gloss and glamour, they fail to provide substantial exposure. Boys from villages of Punjab are obsessed with getting an entry ticket to beauty pageants. These agencies just fool them, making false promises. Like an overweight friend of mine, who’d come from Bathinda to one such local school was duped. He was charged Rs 40,000 and told to sit at home. He kept waiting for a call from Bombay for four months. Finally, the school even denied that he had paid their fee.”

Then, there’s Raman Agnihotri, all of 21, and gearing up for the forthcoming Gladrags contest with gusto. “Young boys are promised that they’ll be made very famous models soon. What these agencies do is provide them for free to various advertising agencies as extras. These boys are told that a lot of agencies are hiring their services and that the school is keeping their payments. While the fact remains that they are not being paid at all. And not just that, many models-in-the making are paying to be cast in a music video!”

Agrees fashion choreographer Jeet Brar, presently running his own modelling and finishing school in town, “Most of the local modelling schools are involved in this money-minting racket. They dupe the naïve and unexposed aspiring models by making false promises. Some even town tear off the Gladrags Contest participation forms, make a file, pose as the organisers and sell the forms at exorbitant rates.”

Shocked? That’s not all. “They even ask the aspirants to get portfolios made from them to ensure victory. For clicking simple pictures, these schools charge anything from Rs 10,000 to 20,000 per person,” tells Jeet.

So, in case you too are planning to head for any of these modelling schools, hold your horses. Apparently, being a hunk with a great body and hair is not enough — you also need to be really street smart.

anandita@tribunemail.com

Experience the MUSIC
Purva Grover
Equipped with powerful computers, speakers with unimaginable audio capabilities and innovative software, young music buffs from the city 
are now swinging to self-created remixed numbers

Drop the vocal track, change the equalisation, touch up the bass effect, shift the music from left to right, increase the pitch and repeat the beats.’ Endless rounds of these instructions are issued, and after four hours, a fresh piece of music is played on the 13,000 watts speakers and the room reverberates with an echo of a refreshing number. No, we are not at a recording studio, but at the home of Prabhjit Singh (26). A bunch of college goers surround him as the final piece is played. After putting in almost 6 hours for 20 days, a remix of Ya Ali from Gangster and Shakira’s Wherever whenever, is ready and the young music enthusiats seem content.

Prabhjit, who works as a store assistant in the city, was convinced by his friends in the neighbourhood to convert his room into a ‘testing studio’. The speakers of his PC are attached to amplifiers made by him. He explains, “They are 5.1 speakers i.e. 6 speakers and 1 sub-woofer.” While the market cost for this hi-fi multimedia system, would not be less than Rs 35,000, Prabhjit has created his own for Rs 20,000. Old melodies of Kishore Kumar please him the most and he makes sure that these re-mixers (as they like to call themselves) do not meddle with the old charm. “I let them introduce changes to make the song in tune with the current genre of music, but without tampering the essence of the number,” he says.

Says Rahul Malhotra, “The technology at his home is a lot different from the normal listening experience.” The remix bug hit Rahul over two years back and today, he boosts of over 500 remixed numbers loaded on his PC. He confesses, “The real good ones are around 100 to 120. Initially we use to spoil some numbers too and I regret that.” Rahul read about a course in deejaying being offered by a city-based institute, but finding the fees very high, he decided to search the net for a software that would make him familiar with the process of remixing music. “It took us over four months to just understand the basics,” he tells. A rap lover, Rahul’s first remix was that of 50 cents and Linking Park that took him over a month’s time. On his PC are over 6000 music files packed in 49 GB. He explains the process, “You begin by selecting a song and picking on numbers that could gel with it. Next, create over 10 –12 options with them. Now, play them all and look for the problem areas in the pitch, tempo, beats and echo. It might take anywhere between seven days to a month to come up with a final product.”

“Even 1/1000th of a second counts here, the point from where the tone ends and begins is very important,” says Ashish Bisht (23). He looks up to the band, Instant Karma as his remix guru and he loves the way the band plays with echo, extra sound and tempo. And out of his personal creations, his favourite is the remix of Dus Bahane, from Dus along with Khalbali from Rang De Basanti that he remixed last month. Another music enthusiast is Rohit Virmani (20). His music library includes 10,000 rap songs and it is bands like Greed, Metallica, Linking Park, Nirvana and POD that get him rolling. He says he doesn’t have a clue about remixing technology and his role is limited to choosing a few lyrics from the hard metal numbers and suggests them for blending with a Bollywood number.

“We have downloaded the trial versions and have never used pirated software,” they say. And well, their remixes are not just limited to their play lists, for, they are uploaded on various music websites and open to any music lover. “Some of our numbers were even picked up by a DJ in Delhi from the website. It was a morale booster to be appreciated from a professional,” they sign off. Next they wish to see the city discs boom with their music scores.

purva@tribunemail.com

Shibani’s got a fan in Sanjay

Crimson PASSION 
City’s pub circuit rocks to the tunes of two young bands
Saurabh Malik

Silence prevails as they get on the stage with drumsticks gyrating in their dexterous hands and agile fingers eager to pluck the bass guitars’ strings.And when they get down to playing music, there is no stopping the crowd. Tees go up in the air and boisterous excitement echoes against the decked up nightclub walls.

For, it’s not everyday that the two rock bands — Crimson from Delhi and Silence from Chandigarh — come together to add the colour of energetic vociferousness to the evening!

So guys, if you wish to dance in sync with the passionate beats of Crimson and Silence, tune into some real excitement by coming over to “Crossover” in Sector 26 this Saturday evening. The bands are performing live at a rock show organized by BIG 92.7 FM and Yamaha at the nightclub.

Just in case you do not know, the four-member rock band Crimson has played itself to popularity in the Delhi rock and pub circuit with a distinct rap-metal flavour. Four-piece band Silence, on the other hand, came into existence, amidst all the cacophony created by one-song-stand singers, in February this year, when they first participated in Campus Rock Idols ’07. Since then, there’s no looking back for them.

The crowd shrieked and screamed with enthusiasm as Aditya Singh, Abhinav Rawat, Gaurav Chauhan and Pranay Gupta of the Silence performed at “TNT” — rock competition held at “PEC fest ‘07”.Fellows, if you wish to know something more about Crimson, here’s a complete rundown on guys, who create magic with music

Small wonder Sahil Sarin, hailing from Chandigarh, started playing with drums when he was just five (before that it was spoon and saucer). And now, he plays drums for the band.

Aditi Singh Sharma is the voice behind the songs, and so many advertisements on the television. You may not recognize her, but you have heard her in ads including ones for Nestle, Hyundai, LG and Sonata Embera. She was the only finalist from New Delhi for the first ‘Kotex Style Seventeen Cover Girl Hunt’ held in Mumbai and appeared in the February issue of the magazine. She’s also played gigs all over Melbourne city along with the Aussie band ‘Skotch’ and has performed at the ‘South Asian Heritage festival’ in Toronto.

Guitarist Jimmy Thang has been playing the guitar seriously for not more than two years. Bass Guitarist Gaurav grew up in a rich musical environment and has been studying music since elementary school. Playing keyboard has been a hobby since he was 11. Gaurav picked up the bass at the age of 17.

Gimme passion

Crimson — the name rocks you! After all, you cannot instantly think of any other group of head-bangers with a colourful name. But as vocalist Aditi Singh Sharma croons about the need to do original compositions in a melodious voice punctuated with emotions, you realise the band has derived its name from passion that is so well pronounced in her speech.

“Crimson is the colour of passion and we all are passionate about music,” she says in a fervent voice.

Back to original compositions, Aditi says so many bands are into playing covers. Nothing wrong with it, as long as they add their own touch to the music, instead of just imitating the bands! But it’s essential to add melody to the lives of listeners by crooning original compositions.

The 21-year-old diva says it’s essential to provide platforms to the youngsters to exhibit their talent. But she’s against song-singing competitions on the television “where everything from the initial selection to the final result is “managed”! “Even the judges do not criticise the participants… while its analysis that the singers want,” she says.

Aditi is also in favour of rock singing opportunities for young talent. As of now, there are no good teachers. Even the instruments are out of a common musician’s reach. Well-said Aditi. Your opinion is actually music to ears.

saurabh@tribunemail.com

Lilting remedy
S.D. Sharma

Catching up and reviving their glorious and melodic past are a group of medical professionals in Panchkula. A team of amateur artists, they maintain a balance between their professional commitments and passion for music. Led by the versatile Dr Pardeep Bhardwaj, an allergy specialist, these doctors have been holding a grand mega show titled Sursangam here for the last eleven years by pooling in their resources. They also participate in programmes hosted by Indian Medical Association.

A gifted vocalist and instrumentalist, Bhardwaj remained a reigning badminton champion in college and even played in national tourneys . But, it was his passion for music that won him early recognition. Training under the tutelage of guru Laxminarain, he won a regional song competition organised by Pracheen Kala Kendra before grabbing a government scholarship of Rs 11,000. At present, keeping him busy are talent hunt shows for their annual function Sursangam-07, which will be held on June 23 at Yavanika, Panchkula. The winners of the show will get a chance to share the stage with these doctors.

Giving him company is Dr Rupak Das, a surgeon with Fortis. In this guitarist’s kitty is a double FRCS fellowship from UK. He even used to play with the rock bands in UK during his formative years. His life and duet partner Dr Venu Das, an accomplished vocalist is a fine accompanist in his pursuits. Dr Ravi Sharma, a laproscopic surgeon and Dr Rosy Aneja are the other members of the group. Another interesting member in the group is young Dr Suman Joshi. A lead vocalist, he gave up his medical practice in Ambala and now manages Jhankar Classic, a musical ensemble. 

Picture Perfect 

With VCDs available for less than the price of cappuccino, residents are building up their own libraries, says Saurabh Malik 

Health TIP OF THE DAY