Major milestones

Can't list every milestone and award he has won - that would be the "opposite of fun" for me!

But major ones, in order of importance -
- Kerala State award, Best male playback singer, for the song Kalame Kaikolluka nee, movie Sayahnam, year 2000, music Perumbavoor G Ravindranath. Incidentally, Perambavoor is also his teacher on and off

- Asianet-Lux award, for the song Sukhamani Nilavu, movie Nammal, year 2002, music Mohan Sithara

- Asianet Voice of the Year - the first such attempt in the country to bring out latent talent from all over Kerala - lasting 1 and 1/2 years in 1996-97, it was a gruelling match of the best talent - music college toppers to professional musicians. The best judges and the best anchors. Vidhu came out best - at age 17, this was a feat. More on all this later ...

- First break in a movie, Devadasi, year 2000, music by Sharath. Unbelievable song Pon Vasantham with 12-13 shifts in talam. Singer Unnikrishnan rendered a song in the same movie which he declared was the toughest song of his career

- First hit song Valeduthal, movie Meesa Madhavan, year 2002, music Vidhyasagar

- The Week magazine, in their 2003 I-Day issue, projects Vidhu Prathap as one of India's 50 emerging stars - this link works on and off, so here's a cached link

- Vidhu's version of the song Shukiriya - from the movie Niram - most requested song for stage shows at that time

- Ilayaraja introduces him in Tamil, movie Solla Marantha Kathai - an offbeat movie with great songs. Song starts with a bold '70's style humming

The beginning ...

If you are imagining Vidhu Prathap's home to be a sangeetha sabha of veteran carnatic exponents, forget it! His father Prathapan was not muscial in any out-of-the-ordinary way nor his mother Laila. His appuppan (the Late Chief Judicial Magistrate, TVM), grandad on his mother's side, however dabbled a little.

Because or inspite of all this, they let the kid take up music lessons when he was 3 years old. His elder sister was already doing that and together they went out to music competitions. The kid pair used to visit their dad in Abudhabi - and go to every competition they could find. And they won prizes.

Vidhu excelled in several art forms - mono-act, recitation, light/classical music etc. More prizes stacked up in his room.

Skip, skip ... end of the begininng.

Pic - Vidhu Prathap with his neice

About this blog - Jan '05

Why a blog about Vidhu Prathap? Fair question. Because, lets see:

- there are a lot of people interested in knowing minute and latest details about this singing star
- people are confused as to why all this attention on "just another new singer"
- people want to get their facts straight on their favorite stars
- they need a compilation of details all at one place
- there is a lack of good write-ups on malayalam music in general
- also, there's my own urge to share this information
- many more reasons - too many to list ...

Being very close to Vidhu Prathap, I hope to do justice to all of you out there who follow his music. There will be frequent updates and unpublished details here - so check back often. There is a lot of hype about him but a lot of facts too, you will see these separated here as we go along. Singer Vidhu Prathap, regular young guy Vidhu Prathap, its a hard combination to carry around. Please post your comments by clicking on the comments link.

Now, onward to the posts ...