When Asha Bhosle announced on July 31 that she was launching an online singing talent hunt show, she set the prize money at Rs one lakh. M...
When Asha Bhosle announced on July 31 that she was launching an online singing talent hunt show, she set the prize money at Rs one lakh. Moved by the five performances in the finale that was streamed live on her Facebook page on September 27, Bhosle gave an additional Rs 25,000 to each of the runners-up of Asha Ki Asha,
“No one should go home empty-handed,” the 87-year-old singing legend told the finalists who addressed her as aai – mother in Marathi. “I will probably do a second season as well.”
The roughly 2,500 singers who sent entries to Asha Ki Asha, Bhosle estimated, were not older than 25. The youngest contestant in the finale was Shravani Wagle, aged 11.
Bhosle asked all contestants to sing without a pre-recorded backing track. “Even when I record in the studio, when they play back the song to me with all the instruments, I ask them to only play my raw voice,” Bhosle explained to Scroll.in. “Machines can fix a voice, but can they give emotion?”
Bhosle came off as generous and nurturing towards the young singers in the finale. “You are very sad, you have pain in your voice,” she told Amaan Khan after he rendered the Mohammed Rafi song Aap Ke Pehlu Mein from Mera Saaya (1966). Khan...
