India’s new super star Pawandeep Rajan | Sunday Observer

India’s new super star Pawandeep Rajan

29 August, 2021

The Indian Idol season 12 Grand Finale was held in Mumbai last Sunday (15) and its winner was 25 years-old Pawandeep Rajan. He mesmerised the crowd from the outset of the season which started last December. He won the Indian Idol trophy defeating 11 other finalists and took home Indian Rs 25 lakhs and a Suzuki Maruti Swift car as well.

This year’s Indian Idol was extended for 9 months due to Covid-19 pandemic. And the grand finale went on for 12 hours and included 40 acts and 200 songs. The show was also graced by acclaimed singers such as Sukhwinder Singh, Mika Singh, Amit Mishra, Kumar Sanu, Javed Ali, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan, who surprised the audience with their melodious acts. And it also had guests such as Sidharth Malhotra, Kiara Advani, Nakuul Mehta and Disha Parmar, among others. The finale was co-hosted by Aditya Narayan and Jay Bhanushali.

Standout singer

The most standout singer of the season was young Pawandeep Rajan though there were some breathtaking performances by the other top five contestants. Before this, he won the Indian TV show ‘The Voice India’ in 2015 as well. But during the 12th Indian Idol he got 1 million followers, and this ultimately resulted in building a road (Marg) in Pawandeep’s honour in Uttarakhand where he is from. The former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag also became a fan of Pawandeep Rajan’s singing. Sehwag could not stop himself from viewing and listening to his song and appreciated him by sharing a video on his Twitter handle. Sehwag wrote, “What talent is there in small towns. Pawandeep Rajan, who hails from Champawat, Uttarakhand, sings so good.”

The other fascinating thing about him is that he and the first runner up Arunita Kanjilal became lovers during the competition. But until the show was over they didn’t publicise their relationship. However, they sang many duets throughout the competition.

Who is Pawandeep?

Pawandeep Rajan was born on July27, 1996 in the Champawat district of Uttarakhand into a Hindu family. His father is Suresh Rajan is one of the famous Kumaoni folk singers of Uttarakhand. His mother’s name is Saroj Kamble. Grandfather Rati Rajan was also a popular folk singer of his time and is the grandson of late Kabutari Devi, the first folk singer of Uttarakhand. Pawandeep has two sisters, Jyotideep Rajan and Chandni Rajan. He is not tall, just five feet six inches height, and weights 60 kgs. His favourite actors are Ranveer Singh and Tiger Shroff while favourite actresses are Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt. His most loved female singer is Neha Kakkar who was one of the three judges at the Indian Idol season 12.

His education

Pawandeep received his early education at the University Senior Secondary School, Champawat. Then, he graduated from Kumaon University, Nainital. He was interested in music from childhood and given this interest, his father started training him in music. Pawan loves playing various musical instruments like the tabla, guitar, dholak, piano as well as the keyboard. In fact, he was about two years old when he first showed an interest in playing the tabla. Because of this talent he was enrolled at the Kumaon festival held in Champawat that year (1998).

Pawandeep Rajan made his audience aware of his amazing and unique talent while presenting his stage program. Though, today, he is showcasing his talent through the national channel, very few people know that he showed his talent in playing the tabla on the national channel Doordarshan and Zee TV from a young age. Hence, he is not only a popular singer, rather, he is also known to play various musical instruments - He had made the people of Uttarakhand crazy by singing Pahari songs.

His emergence as an artiste

Seeing the talent of Pawandeep, Kalpana Chauhan’s husband Rajendra Chauhan gave him a break in one of his albums. His song Meri Maya Band was quite popular in Uttarakhand. Then, he started to work with film directors such as Prahlad Nihalani, singer Sonu Nigam, Adnan Sami along with many famous personalities including film actors Govinda and Bobby Deol. For the moment, he has lent his voice to many Bollywood, Marathi, Pahari, regional Kumaoni, and Garhwali folk songs.

Pawandeep has played in various music concerts not only in India but also abroad. He has performed musical concerts in about 13 countries, including countries like Dubai, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, and has done more than 1200 stage shows so far. Due to such great achievements, the Uttarakhand government also honoured him with the title of ‘Youth Ambassador of Uttarakhand’. He has uploaded his life events and his singing performance images and videos on Instagram, where he has more than 574k followers.

Apart from all these, he is a member of the Chandigarh-based band Rait and is their lead vocalist. Pawandeep has given voice to Hindi songs as well as Punjabi, Garhwali, and Kumaoni songs. Now he has opened a studio in his home in Champawat. While recording an awareness song in the Covid – 19 era, he gave a message to people to avoid corona too.

It is also noteworthy to mention that in an episode of Indian Idol 12, a veteran singer Bappi Lahiri gifted Pawandeep a gold chain, and Himesh Reshammiya offered him 10 songs as well.

Before the Indian Idol Grand Finale he spoke about it as follows:

“Indian Idol is a platform that gives a lot of respect to artists, and the kind of exposure it gets you is unmatched. Through the course of the show, we got to sing so many songs, and had the best judges and guests to guide us. The reason I got back in the arena was not my will to win but my quest to learn. And I am thankful that after spending so many months on this show, we are now ready to playback.”

The singer has been a fan favourite ever since the show went on air last year. And throughout the season he tried to promote the folk music too. He said about it, “Since the start of the season, I have spoken about promoting folk music. I am so thankful that the show gave me the opportunity to bring Pahari music on an international level. I got to perform on songs that I grew up as a child, and I will always be obliged to the team for the same.”

So, Pawandeep Rajan will be a next super singer in the future of India such as Mohommad Rafi, Mukesh, Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan. It is not surprising that such talent came from a reality show because there is a high musical foundation in India. In contrast, we never have such a foundation and thereby we cannot find such talent too from any of our reality shows. However, our organisers of reality shows can gain so many things from events such as Indian Idol.

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