Indrani Dutta, one ofthe judges, at the event

Shilajit on song

The winners Sayantan Roy and Namrata Chatterjee. Pictures by Aranya Sen

Singled out from preliminary rounds of screening at Durgapur and Calcutta, 10 raw talents waiting to be discovered stepped into the finale of the Dabur Vatika Shampoo Anandalok Tarar Khonje at Kalamandir on Sunday evening.

As the search for Tollywood’s fresh faces ran into its third season, the aspirants — selected from a pool of 2,000 applicants, combed from Santiniketan, Tarakeshwar, Dum Dum and Garia — were groomed from scratch by KFTI (Kolkata Film and Television Institute) over 10 days. All five girls — Paromita, Romi, Namrata, Nimisha and Satabdi and the five guys — Abhirup, Raja, Arindam, Sayantan and Deep — went through a rigorous routine of brushing up on their looks, moves and expressions, followed by a thorough styling session at Be Bonnie’s for a quick makeover.

The judges

Popular faces from Tolly and telly including filmmaker Prabhat Roy, television producer Atanu Roy and actors Indrani Dutta and Kunal Mitra were judges for the night while others from stage and screen like Sohag Sen, Saheb, Bhaswar and Soumili made fleeting appearances during the show. While previous years saw directors Vashu Bhagnani and Anurag Basu from Mumbai filling up the mark-sheets, the Bollywood quotient was missing this time and so were some of those candid observations.

The action

The competition kicked off with a round of self introductions followed by a 50-second solo act where all 10 contenders took turns to step into the shoes of characters ranging from football fanatic to grouchy director, scheming widow to tormented woman scorned. They laughed, they cried, they yelled and they romanced in their bid to impress the judges and win a ticket to tinsel town.

The contestants seemed to try a tad too hard to improvise on the odd and amusing situations fired at them by the experts. “You call your boyfriend home because your parents are away but they miss their flight and return home to find both of you. How would you tackle them?” asked Prabhat Roy. “Act like an intoxicated para boy who returns home on Dashami night and stumbles upon his father waiting at the door. How would you convince him that he too should have been drunk?” was Indrani’s challenge.

The second round came as a breather, with contestants taking turns to act out classic hits like Jiboney ki pabona, Ami Miss Calcutta and Shing nei tobu naam tar shingha while trying to keep the lip sync in order.

Decked up in leather, shimmer and shine, contestants waltzed on to stage in pairs to jazz up the third phase of the contest — a duet dance round based on the theme of popular “on-screen jodis”.

Romi and Raja tried to recreate the Kajol-Shah Rukh magic, Nimisha and Sayantan attempted a Rani-Abhishek while Paromita and Abhirup tried to match steps to a Kareena-Hrithik number. Namrata and Arindam as Katrina and Salman blazed the stage as Satabdi and Deep tottered around as Mumtaz and Rajesh.

The final round was a closed-door affair as judges moved to a separate room. They sat together and waited for each contestant to walk in and make their last attempt to impress them by reading a script prepared specially for the event.

While the contestants continued to battle it out behind the scenes, Shilajit took centre-stage to belt out some of his popular hits like Sudeshna tei honours, Pagol, Tumi ja jinish and others.

The contest was also punctuated by power-packed performances by Unish Kuri Dance Mania winner Crossover as the troupe jived to a medley of popular chart-busters. Next up were Unish Kuri Modhur Kantha winners Nilakshi and Bibhabendu, with their repertoire of popular Hindi numbers like Mera naam chin chin choo, Doori and more.

The winners

After a brief spell of heady anticipation, the moment of truth finally arrived as the judges zeroed in on 21-year-old Namrata Chatterjee, all the way from Santiniketan and Sayantan Roy, 28, of Baguiati as the ultimate winners of this year’s Anandalok Tarar Khonje contest.

Apart from the star-shaped trophy and sash, the winners will get ready to face the cameras armed with an acting contract for a forthcoming venture by Atanu Roy’s production house Sweet Melody, which has produced serials like Dhyatterika, Tamosharekha and others.

Dum Dum girl Romi Nag Chowdhury bagged the title of Vatika Girl of Substance while Raja Goswami from Girish Park earned the Anandalok Man of Action award based on their talent, dedication and sense of discipline over the grooming period.