Neelanjana Ray, the winner of 'Sa Ra Ga Ma Pa 2022', says even though reaching out to a larger audience through social media and viral videos is easier, reality TV shows still hold relevance for newcomers like her.Post winning the show, the Kolkata-based 19-year-old singer feels happy and overwhelmed at the same time.Talking to IANS while she expresses her gratitude for the win as a result of the love from the audience, she also explained, why such reality shows hold relevance for her.Considering the fact that these days liking of the audience has become quite unpredictable as non-musical content like 'Kacha Badam' goes viral and Bhuban Badykar becomes famous, the question naturally arises that how much importance a young musician should give to the judgment of the audience.
Neelanjana told IANS: "Well, I think when it comes to the liking of our audience, good singers always find their validation from the audience, and it stays in their mind. Yes there are social media and using that people can become an overnight star, but in a reality shows, we get huge professional grooming."
She went on adding, "In a music class, I can learn music and sharpen my talent but if I want to become a professional musician, along with my singing, I need to learn how to present my work, how to talk to media, grooming etc. All of us participants have learned how to conduct ourselves in public and other professional behaviour. I believe that is why the relevance of TV music reality shows will always remain the same for us."Neelanjana has won the trophy of 'Sa Ra Ga Ma Pa Music Ka Tyohaar', on Zee TV as well as received a lot of praises from music icons like Udit Narayan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Shankar Mahadevan. Aditya Narayan teamed with music director Shreyas, lyricist Prashant Rangoli, to create an original song for her.Given a hypothetical situation in which she gets a chance to meet her favourite singer and sing a song, Neelanjana said, " I would like to meet my all-time favourite Shreya Ghoshal who also started her journey from the music reality show, and I will be performing 'Mere Dholna' for her. It is her song but there I will try and impress her with the nuanced vocals and I want to hear from her!"