X Factor India

X Factor India is Indian Idol reloaded. It’s the desi adaptation of the international X Factor. Everyone keeps talking of the X factor,the judges are looking for some elusive quality,the contestants falling over each

other,standing in serpentine queues,cross their arms into an ‘X’ and keep saying,‘Mujh mein hai X factor!’.

Yeah,right.

And so Sonu Niigaam,Shreya Ghoshal and Sanjay Leela Bhansali screen contestants for that special something and select or reject on basis of that. Some five editions of Indian Idol and sundry other music reality shows later,now even a five-year-old can guess who will make the final cut!

While the camera captures the thousands of aspirants braving heat and competition,not to forget the humiliation of rejection on national television (fortunately,the judges are not devils from hell),what we get to see are just a handful of them. I wonder what happens to the rest of them! Do the judges actually audition them? How many days do they require to go through all of them?

And so what you get are a few surilas with that indescribable X quality and a lot many who seem to have come for a good time or because they have nothing better to do. There was this one lady who claimed to be a big devotee of Mata and when she was rejected,she mumbled to the camera,‘Main toh serial ke liye aayi thi,mujhe gaane mein interest nahin hai’.

There was another ‘ambitious’ mother who wanted to fulfill her dreams through her daughter,Nimisha Deb. While the daughter had a good voice,she still didn’t impress the judges leaving the mother to dismiss their verdict with a sarcastic wave of hand.

About the judges,Sonu is clearly everyone’s favourite as most of them idolise him,touch his feet and weep at the sight of their ‘God’. Shreya dresses like a Christmas tree most of the times but is sweet and candid. She is the best when she occasionally hums her songs. That leaves SLB who keeps chewing something and is moody and looks largely disinterested. In the initial episodes,he looked completely at loss as Shreya and Sonu had their own little party going but now the three seem to be working as a team.

The show doesn’t offer anything new in terms of format or the way it’s shot,yet it’s entertaining in bits and spurts. The visual that will always stick with me is of Sonu having food in front of a mirror! I guess he is still looking for that X factor within himself…

Verdict: **1/2

Watch it if you must.