Anushka sings her way to record book

FOLLOWING THE footsteps of her ideal Palak Muchchal, another Indore prodigy ? nine-year-old Anushka Singhal ? is all set to enter the Limca Book of Records for her singing.

FOLLOWING THE footsteps of her ideal Palak Muchchal, another Indore prodigy — nine-year-old Anushka Singhal — is all set to enter the Limca Book of Records for her singing.
 
Singing continuously for 18 hours, the fifth class student of City’s ILVA School has aimed at breaking the record by Venkatesh (Chennai), who holds the record for singing continuously for 17 hours.

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Encouraged by her parents, her grandmother and a hoard of relatives and well wishers through out the day, the singing prodigy sang 75 songs, including bhajans and film and patriotic songs (repeating the cycle every five hours) from 5 am onwards till 11 pm. 

Anushka’s mother Pushpa Singhal claims the child is “god-gifted” and they have not taken any special efforts for her programme today, barring her routine practice. Her father Pankaj Singhal, a school teacher, said the singer practiced for whole of last week for about 4-5 hours daily and yesterday was like a dress rehearsal. “She kept on practicing till 11 pm when we had to stop her.”

Anushka has had no formal training in singing as yet. “My daughter has been singing since the age of three and has this wonderful knack of capturing the essence of any song just by listening to it,” the proud mother said.
“But now, we plan to chart a proper career path for her,” added Pankaj.

When asked what was the motivating factor for a child so young to try for such a feat, pat comes the reply “Palak Muchchal is her ideal and Anushka wants to emulate the former by staging programmes to help social causes.”

Palak has given over 250 performances and raised money for heart patients, mostly children. Palak herself was present on the occasion to encourage Anushka. “First when I heard about the programme, I thought, how is it possible for a nine-year-old to sing for this long,” said Palak and quickly added “but when I reached here, Anushka’s exuberance, her enthusiasm and confidence convinced me she can achieve the target.”

The Singhals feel that to achieve what Anushka aims for – to help the needy patients through her stage show – a fillip was required, “which will bring her name, not for the sake of fame but as an opportunity to reach out to more people.”
The effort might as well pay off as during the day, Rajesh Joshi of Mumbai-based `Hello Baby’ company announced to sponsor Anushka in future and also name her as their brand ambassador for their baby products.

Indore’s Agrawal Samaj has already announced to honour the talented girl with ‘Agrasen Award’ on September 3. For the event Ravi Salke was the music coordinator and he played the synthesizer, accompanied by Arjun Kulpare (dholak), Anup Kulpare (drum set) and Hemant Pavade (tabla). The whole team also set a record as they played along with Anushka all the while. 

“When a nine-year-old child can attempt to sing for 18 hours, we decided we will also play with her for the entire duration,” Salke said.Those who came to wish her and encourage her included her relatives, neighbours, teachers and prominent personalities from various fields. Calling her “self-motivated”, her class-teacher Shobha Maheshwari said the school supported and encouraged the child, as “we are sure, she has great talent.”

The whole event has been video-recorded and the recording along with the newspaper clippings would make their way to the Limca Book of Records, where the feat would be ratified after a few formalities.