Indian Idol- Season 3 begins! But, where are the Indian Idols 1&2?

Yet another round of talent hunts began last week on Sony TV’s Indian Idol. Well, after being subjected to two such torturous reality shows, nobody is really watching with bated breaths for this one! It’s become all too predictable and routine for the Indian viewers. The long queues, the tears, the joy and the drama with the judges are all too familiar! The question that is on everybody’s mind is – What happened to the other winners of the Indian Idol show 1 & 2? I am filled with amazement when I see these long queues of people, from all parts of the country, gathering to give auditions for this reality show!
Let’s take a look at some of the earlier reality shows and see what happened to those contestants! Most of the stars faded almost immediately the show was over. Remember the very talented Rahul Vaidya, who showed great promise and was the blue-eyed boy of the Indian Idol judges, is still waiting for a major break. Rahul had been applauded by all the judges, so, are they helping him? No, there doesn’t seem to be any push or help of any sorts so far! Even the channel seems to lose interest in them soon after the show is over!
For that matter, even Aditi Paul and Prajakta Shukla, the runners up of the Indian Idol 1, are still struggling to get a break! The winner of the first show, Abhijeet Sawant is not any better off. He seems to have disappeared after his first album “Apka Abhijeet” was released and hasn’t done anything else! What happened to Sandeep Acharya – 2nd Winner of Indian Idol? This lad from Rajasthan got instant appreciation and limelight but failed to make a mark so far! We haven’t seen him at all. As for the runner up of Indian Idol2, NC Karunya- got to sing one song in the film “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”.
Let’s also take a look at the winners of the other reality shows that were aired on TV.

# The winners of ‘Cine Star Ki Khoj’, Aditi Sharma and Sarvar Ahuja – While the channel never made the promised movie with these winners, they played the lead in Mukta Arts’ “Khanna & Iyer”.
# The MTV talent hunt winner- Panchi Bora is playing the lead in Ekta Kapoor’s “Qayamat”.
# The runner up of ‘Cine Star Ki Khoj’ is visible in many ad campaigns and also got a chance to play Amitabh’s daughter in the film “Nishabd”.
# The winners of ‘Fame Gurukul’- Qazi Taufeeq and Rooprekha Bannerjee are nowhere to be seen.



Now let’s shift the focus to American Idol and the scene there is entirely different. Take the case of Jennifer Hudson, who is an American Idol find, won the Oscar for the best supporting actress this time. Sanjaya Malakar, of weird hairdos and of debatable talent, may have been ousted from the contest but did get more than his Indian counterparts. He has, to his credit, been invited to the white house and is as popular as the contestants for the US Presidency. He also has Britney Spears showing interest in working with him!