Repartee Station

Over the last couple of weeks,cities across Punjab have seen the best boli singers come forward and showcase their skills. An intrinsic part of special Punjabi occasions like weddings where customary bhangra and gidda rounds are interspersed with boliyaan,the folk songs of repartee have now been revived by radio station Big FM and TV channel Spark Punjabi. As part of the Big Boli Star contest,listeners, most of who are amateur singers,have presented their versions of traditional bolis over the last month. Friday evening saw the grand finale of the contest being rolled out with Sangrur’s Rajvinder Singh and Ludhiana’s Harpreet adjudged the joint winners of the contest. The finale,held at Bal Bhavan,Chandigarh saw winners of the auditions held earlier at Amritsar,Jalandhar,Ludhiana,Patiala,Chandigarh and Jammu vie for the title. Judging them were renowned folk singers Pammi Bai and Sukhi Brar who chose Savroop Singh of Amritsar as the first runner-up. Interestingly,all the three winners,who took home Rs 51,000 each,are students of Punjab colleges. While 24-year-old Rajvinder Singh is studying at Akal Degree College,23-year old Harpreet is a BA final year student of GGN Khalsa College,Ludhiana and Savroop is a student of Khalsa College,Amritsar.

“After entering the contest,I did a lot of research on the Internet and also met my friends and relatives to get boliyaan from them,” remarked Rajvinder. Whereas Harpreet says that she created a number of bolis herself besides reciting the traditional ones. Savroop now wants to take the bolis further. “We,as the youth of Punjab,are the brand ambassadors of our own rich cultural heritage and we should propagate it.” The show was hosted by Big FM RJs Dhanvir and Megha and will be telecast soon on Spark Punjabi.