A Sunidhi icing on India Day's cake

Sep 28, 2014

No one warned that this Sunidhi Chauhan lass of a singer would turn out such a big deal. Nothing about her meek persona indicated she would bring down the roof at Kampala’s India Day celebrations.

By Nigel M. Nasser

KAMPALA - No one warned that this Sunidhi Chauhan lass of a singer would turn out such a big deal. In fact, even as the Indian Women Association (IWA) unveiled her to the press on Friday September 19 at Kabira Country Club, nothing about her meek persona indicated she would bring down the roof the following day at Kampala’s India Day celebrations.

She just sat there, gracefully responding to journalists’ questions without an ounce of cockiness that big-time stars are wont to exude.

And for some reason, even with emcee Abha Kalsi constantly referring to her as a “sensational sizzling singer”, none of the few journalists around cared to Google her up. But the Indian tycoons around the unveiling, which also happened to be a cocktail for sponsors of the following day’s India Day celebrations, kept scampering to take pictures with her. They treated her as some sort of royalty.

Still, there was something about the journalists’ body language that seemed to go like, “Yeah, some pretty Indian singer in town to entertain the Indian Community in Uganda; no big deal.”

Turns out we were wrong, and were about to witness a real “sensationally sizzling” performance from one of India’s topmost playback artiste’s, best known for her Hindi film songs in Bollywood, as well as being one of the most recorded voices in India today, with over 3,000 studio recordings to her name.

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Indian High Commissioner Dr. AVS Ramesh Chandra welcomes Chief Guest Speaker Rebecca Kadaga

And somehow, even without massive publicity of the artistes visit, all the Indians got the memo. And they did show up in droves on Saturday September 20.

By about 5:00pm, the Lugogo Cricket Oval was chockablock with over 10,000 Indians (I doubt any Indian was at the Club Megafest, which also happened at the same time at Nelson Mandela Stadium). Because it looked like all Indians were at Lugogo.

And the name Sunidhi Chauhan just kept rolling off the lips of pretty much all of them, as they waited for the multi-award-winning star to hit the stage.

The function, graced by Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, kicked off at 6:00pm, with everything top notch, so top- Tororo Municipality MP Sanjay Tanna receives an award for excellence in politics and business notch that a pair of samosas went for a topnotch sh10,000, and that was arguably the most affordable food item.

The setting was that of a swanky stage by Silk Events, many service providers of all sorts of fancy food and drinks, motor and tech exhibitors, ambulances on standby for emergencies, a sea of Indian-Ugandans, the occasional indigenous Ugandan, several policemen and other security agents.

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Children in a portrayal of Indian music. PHOTOs by Denis Dibele & Roderick Ahimbazwe

It was easily one of the biggest Indian congregations Uganda has seen over the years, each one of them visibly embracing the moment to celebrate India Day, a fun-filled extravaganza celebrated back in India subsequent to August 15, which is India’s independence anniversary.

Mainly a day to celebrate India’s diversity in culture, languages, religions and colour, among others, Indians basically loosen up and indulge themselves on this day, so much so they will pay for a pair of samosas at sh10,000 without complaining.

To that effect, they had to fly in one of the best entertainers from home to help the over 27,000 Indians in Uganda loosen up in concert style. And Sunidhi, easily the most preferred voice for any play-back singing in an Indian movie, was that person.

She flew in with her 18-member band to bring the house down at the India Day concert, also part of IWA’s charity initiatives in support of cancer patients in Uganda — which is why donations were made as the night’s events went on.

The first stage acts were an assortment of choreographed cultural performances from different regional ethno-linguistic groups and communities of India. They portrayed in a dramatic way the different activities that form India’s backbone, including Indian music and dance, cultures, fashion, film and the like.

This bit brought out the best of Indian saris, as girls from different Indian-run schools, and women from IWA among other communities, showcased their artistic side.

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Schoolgirls in a drama about cancer

One of the outstanding pieces was the dramatisation of the menace that cancer is, ultimately ending with it defeated after a united front against it, a cause IWA is known for, given its long-running support of the annual cancer run.

The congratulatory speeches, including Kadaga’s, part sponsor Airtel MD Tom Gutjahr’s, and Indian High Commissioner Ramesh Chandra’s, were all brief to give way to performances.

Kadaga, who said her association with Indians comes from way back, took us down the memory lane of her primary school days at Shimoni Demonstration, where she was the only indigenous Ugandan for a long time, with a host of Indian friends.

“So, my being chief guest here tonight is not by mistake,” she said, welcoming Sunidhi, and congratulating the Indian community upon their celebrations.

High Commissioner Chandra stressed the cordial relations India enjoys with Uganda, and India’s diversity, among the important celebrations of the day.

The other reasons for celebration, he said, included India being the biggest democracy in the world with 1.25 billion people, excelling in cricket, having carried out a very successful election that brought into office Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Uganda’s Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa becoming president of the 69th session of the UN General Assembly.

Others, like IWA chairlady Gurmeet Kaur, Indian Association Uganda Chairman Chirag Dave, also gave congratulatory speeches that gave way to the awards slot, where Indians who excelled during the year in business, corporate social responsibility, education, politics and sports, among others, were recognised.

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Singer Rakesh Maini curtain-raised for Sunidhi

Also, an India Day 2014 souvenir magazine was launched by Kadaga, Chandra, and representatives from sponsors, including Lato Milk, Airtel, APA Insurance, Ruparelia Group, Aqua Sipi, Abacus, Standard Chartered Bank and Alam Group.

But partyers needed their Sunidhi icing on the day’s cake, so music had to take over from the offi cial nuance. The lights dimmed, and Sunidhi’s band took to fi ne-tuning their machines as the audience itched for her. Her curtain-raiser for the evening, 31-year-old Rakesh Maini, took to the stage.

Another singer of repute in India, Rakesh, was discovered in 2010 when he became fi nalist on Season Five of the televised music show Indian Idol, where Sunidhi was one of the judges.

All and sundry had a swell time singing along his soothing music while waiting for Sunidhi, who, away from Hindi, has also recorded music in other Indian dialects and languages, including Oriya, Punjabi, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Assamese and Nepali, Urdu and English.

Then, without much of a warning, the long-awaited 31-year-old Sunidhi, who began singing at age four, is a former winner of the televised singing contest Meri Awaz Sunothat, and debuted as a playback film singer at age 13, took to the stage at 9:40pm.

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Sunidhi hit the stage clad in a little black sequin dress and gladiator heels

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The Lugogo Cricket Oval was chockablock with over 10,000 Indians

Clad in a little black sequin dress and gladiator heels, Sunidhi, all feisty and looking more like the diva she is, caused raucous euphoria from the audience as she sauntered onto the stage to hip-hop inspired Indian instrumentals.

“Hello Kampala, are you ready for Sunidhi? I am so excited to be here for my first time. Amazing place and people I had not discovered yet – thank you for inviting me, so let us do this,” she cooed, before starting off right away with Halkat Jawani (Mean Teenager), a Hindi danceable hit from the Bollywood movie Heroine.

Not that I had a clue what the words meant, no. From my skin complexion, just about every partyer figured out this chap taking notes in a New Vision notebook must be a journalist, and needed some help.

So I had lots of them volunteer translating this and that for me, and I was basically synched in. But then again, music is music, and even though I could not make out the words, I did not need a rocket scientist’s ear to tell what good music sounds like.

Away from the sweet tunes and all, Sunidhi had a way with alternating her voice between very varied keys – from a very low one to the highest, and then to moderate ones, with lots of ease. Then she had that facial expression that said “love” when it was what she was singing about.

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Chief Guest Kadaga (fourth left) launches the India Day 2014 souvenir magazine

That song Mahiya (Lover), somehow got just about everyone’s facial expression mellowing up as they sang along, “You are my Mahiya”.

Everyone from closer to the stage to the back where revelers were following via huge projector screens. Add that to her skill of flirting with the audience and you have it sealed.

The danceable songs got all of us dancing along. That includes High Commissioner Chandra, who started by nodding, then to snapping a finger, and before we knew it, he was in full dancing mode.

Kadaga, who left before Sunidhi’s performance, definitely missed breaking a sweat there. I asked one police officer whether he understood what he was dancing to and he went like, “My friend, this stuff sounds good, I do not care what it means. Who is this beautiful girl? She must be the Juliana of India, don’t you think?” I thought so too, just that the Indian Juliana has a lot more to write home about.

When a singer gets you dancing without you understanding the words, you know they are high calibre. And Sunidhi is. She sang non-stop for about an hour, swinging revelers in and out of different moods with hits like Gungun Gunari, Dhoom Machale, Kamli, Dil Cheez, Kya Hai and Dekh le Aankhon, among others – all of which sound tracks to major movies of different Indian film industries.

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Left, Tororo Municipality MP Sanjay Tanna receives an award for excellence in politics and business and on the right, Indian Women Association chairperson Gurmeet Kaur

Her 20-minute interlude returned Rakesh in what reinvigorated the audience for her last lap, which also lasted about an hour, bits of which included collabos with Rakesh. She saved for last the now trending sound track she recently did for the television series Ek Haseena Thi, quenching the thirst of many, who kept asking for it from the moment she stepped onto stage.

Sunidhi has warmed herself into the hearts of Indians, no wonder she has a host of local and international awards to her name, including two Filmfare Awards, two Star Screen Awards, two IIFA awards, and one Zee Cine Award.

Married since 2012 to her childhood friend and music composer Hitesh Sonik, Sunidhi, whose previous marriage to film director and choreographer Bobby Khan lasted a year (2002-2003), has turned down acting roles several times, preferring singing.

She said in a recent interview she is considering trying it out. She is believed to be the most versatile Indian singer today, and has collaborated with, among others, renowned Spanish singer-songwriter Enrique Iglesias.

Also, she recently made it to the list of Asia’s Hottest Women.

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