Winners of Dabur Honitus Unish Kuri Madhur Kantha with Koel Mullick. Picture by Aranya Sen

What: Dabur Honitus Unish Kuri Madhur Kantha.

Where: Kala Mandir.

When: Friday, 5.15 pm onwards.

Sound check: Dabur Honitus Unish Kuri Madhur Kantha was all about a medley of musical talent. The talent hunt for aspiring singers across Bengal reached its finale on Friday evening, when the 10 finalists rendered their best performances.

The programme kicked off with a lively dance performance by participants to the tune of Selam Unish Kuri, a song composed by singer Sidhu (Siddhartha) of Bangla band Cactus.

The 10 finalists were chosen from among 3,000 entries and the prelims were held in Calcutta, Durgapur and Siliguri earlier this year. They were then groomed and trained for a month.

There were three rounds —Indian classical, Bengali contemporary and judges’ choice.

The participants were judged on their singing skill and stage performance by a panel of five judges — Viju Shah, Shantanu Moitra, Sriradha Bandopadhyay, Shilajit and Rupam Islam.

“They seem to practice music quite passionately,” was Shilajit’s verdict on the finalists. There was a guest performance by Madhusree, the playback singer of Yuva fame.

In the second round, the 10 finalists sang songs of their choice.

The third and the toughest round was the judges’ choice. This was practically the deciding round.

The song Beedi from Omkara — made famous by Bipasha Basu’s sexy moves on screen — sung by Dolon Ghosal from Rampurhat added a dash of extra energy to the proceedings.

Winners: Arindam Chakraborty of Serampore was crowned winner, followed by Payel Chakraborty of Uttarpara and Jayita Sinha of North Dinajpur.

“There was a spark in them from the beginning and the way they defined music was different from others,” said Prasant A. Samadher, who trained the 10 finalists for a month. The winner gets a chance to cut an album with Asha audio.

Voiceover: “I would love to give the winners a break in Bollywood,” said Viju Shah. Shantanu Moitra of Parineeta fame praised the whole effort of Dabur Honitus Unish Kuri talent hunt and said: “Bengal has always produced talent as young talent is encouraged so much here.”

Tollywood star Koel Mullick, one of the guests for the evening, later said she had “a blast”.

“They are just fantastic… I am proud that there’s so much talent in Calcutta and all over Bengal,” she smiled, pretty as a picture in a blue-and-yellow flowy sari.