A LARGE crowd of patrons was gripped by performances in the Bollywood segment of the GT&T Jingle & Song semi-final competition, held last Thursday evening at the National Cultural Centre.

The ten contestants set the tone for the entire evening of both English and Bollywood segments, and interesting performances were delivered. Proceedings began with introduction of the judges of the Bollywood segment — Joel Ghansham, Aditya Persaud, Sookrani Boodhoo and Sherry–Ann Dyal, who had a night of keen competition to adjudicate.
The first act saw the Bollywood dancers from Shellita’s Hot Flash Dancers delighting patrons with stunning Bollywood dance moves, paving the way for the first contestant, Yeataindra Singh, to perform his song, ‘Baby dance leh me see’. His strong voice and excellent stage work found favour with the judges and created the hype for the rest of the night.
Reshma Persaud then took to the stage and lifted her performance to another level with her song ‘Bolo Bolo, originally performed by Babla & Kanchan. The judges found her performance smooth and comfortable.
Andy Rambarack was the next performer. He lit the entire evening with ‘Mor Tor’, one of the greatest stage performances of the entire Bollywood competition. The judges described it as “locking down the house”.
The next performance was done by Bibi Halima Khan, who came out like a movie star dressed for the occasion, and proceeded to deliver an excellent performance which brought the audience to their feet as she performed ‘Wine on me’.
Sasenarine Hitnayaran’s song, ‘Free to Mingle’, concluded the first half of the Bollywood segment. The judges described his performance as flat, and he promised to give his best in his next performance.
GT&T’s Adrian Dutchin then took the stage to conduct a Blackberry sing-off, wherein a brave lucky customer won himself a Blackberry Smartphone.
On resumption, the performance continued with Bollywood favourite Bunty Singh rendering his song ‘I ain’t marrying’. It was a performance the judges described as melodious, and he came out as the flame of the night.
Harresh Singh’s song, ‘Don’t hold me back’, did not do justice to his performance, since he came up short with the flow of the song.
Denishwar Bissessar’s ‘Single forever’ brought the audience a party mood and recorded another excellent performance in the Bollywood segment.
Devchandra Ramrattan and his ‘Bangale Babu’ caught the judges and audience by surprise. His performance was described as “off the hook” with the choice of song and the stage moves.
The final contestant concluded the segment with his song ‘Friends for the Nite’. Eric Suhrah brought to the night a smooth, melodious voice and great stage performance.
The public voting commenced minutes after midnight, and supporters were asked to continue voting by texting the code of the contestant of their choice to GT&T’s network, 620 VOTE (8683). Their vote would enable their favoured contestant to be in the finals of this competition.
The Bollywood listing is as follows: B1 – Sasenarine Hitnarayan; B2 – Harresh Singh; B5 – Bibi Halima Khan; B6 – Andy Rambarack; B8 – Denishwar Bisessar; B9 – Bunty Singh; B10 – Reshma Persaud; B13 – Devchandra Ramrattan; B15 – Erick Sukrah, and B16 – Yeataindra Singh.