Truthfully speaking, "Indian Idol" has changed my life in these two-three months. Not only had my confidence increased …..I have noticed a change in my attitude also. I have learnt a lot from Mini Mathur's and Raksahnda Khan's attitude and dressing style, trying to change myself accordingly. Beside, there are so any pleasant memories regarding this competition….I can't speak about all of them. I think till now the days in "Indian Idol" are the greatest days in my life. I had lots of love of my co-contestants there. Amay Date, MC Karunya, Panna Gill, Neha Thakkar…. I had great friendship with all of them. Till now Karu (Karunya) and Amay says how much they are missing me by sending SMS. They say without me there is no fun at all .They all used to call me Bangladeshi Idol. My home is at Machhlandpur. It's at Bangladesh border. So they had a misconception that I am a gal of Bangladesh.
Panna was my best friend. I cried a lot when he was out of the competition. He is a very sweet guy and extremely naughty also. Once he told me to call Amay a "Baoret", it's a Marathi word, may be some slang. I didn't know that then. When I called Amay a "Baoret" he asked me who had taught me that. Then he told e the original meaning of the word. I was very ashamed then. But Panna is such a guy that it's impossible to forget him after once introduced.
One day I and Monali also fooled the others. Once we, standing at a side said, "Look how the guys are looking like Ram chhagal (Ram)".They couldn't understand and asked what the meaning of chhagal (goat) is. We made them understand chhagal means very knowledgeable person. We had loads of fun that time. Neha was the youngest among us but one can't understand that by listening her. She is a very mature girl. Rabiji was a very funny person; he used to make us laugh. We had to give the tension byte in between the program. And at that very moment I felt like laughing, especially when I saw Rabiji. He used to do such caricatures that it had been too difficult to control laughing. But after Rabiji was out we used to really very tense while giving tension byte. Sandeep used to speak a bit little and when he speaks he speaks in such a low voice that it takes some time to understand. And Anujji used to spend all the time in phone. There was no limit how any phone calls he used to receive. But he is a nice man and was the senior most.
Karunya is an absolute sweetheart, very nice guy. He used to say all the time, "Minal and Monali are my two fair-ladies and Antara is my love". It was completely a joke. But a rumour spread every where that there is something in between us. It was written in a newspaper also. It was an embarrassing situation. In the car I used to seat at one side of him and Minal at the other side. For this reasons guys used to pull his leg saying "What you are? Why do you always seat in the gals car?" Farha Khan loved me a lot. She also kissed me. After a gala round that I have became Britney Spears. In a round I sang the song "Morni bagama bole". After that she started calling me morni.
Amay used to tell me that I am a model of Paris. I can't be model here. So I have to go to Paris. Even in a recent interview in a FM channel he spoke in on air that Antara is our Parisian model. Actually we never had a competitive mentality. If I sang besura in the rehearsal they used to tell me, "What the hell are you singing?" I too never praised anyone in fake. I used to speak about others fault in a straight forward manner. The maximum problem used to arise during the selection of songs. I used to select the song most quickly. And the others used to make a complete mesh. Guruji, Mom, Dad… they used to give every one the list of songs by calling them. Different people used to choose different songs. Then they went to bathroom, used to practice there and then took decision what they will sing!
I can't count the number of celebrities we meet. Hariharan, A.R.Rahman, Sadhna Sargam, Madhushri, Saroj Khan, Puja Batra, Javed Jafri etc. We watched Sonuji's live program….in a word it was excellent. Many came in our program as celebrity judge. One day Preetie Zinta told that she wants me to playback for her in a film soon. I am a big fan of Karina Kapoor. Having the opportunity, when I told her that she told me that "I have become your fan seeing your performance"! Then she told that I was looking beautiful in saree.
We had the greatest experience while we six performed for the Film Fare Award. During our rehearsal we saw Abhishek, Aiswarya, Madhuri Dixit are rehearsing in the stadium. We saw Aiswarya having makeup in her van next to the van in which we were having ours. I felt as if we too have become part of Bollywood. I was most happy after introducing with Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan. Seeing Abhishek we started singing "Ek mei aur ek tu", a hit song of "Bluff Master". Security didn't understand that we are contestants of "Indian Idol". So they resist us. But then I felt Abhishek must have been watched our program regularly. He introduced us with Amitabh moving away the security. I didn't miss the opportunity…. I touched Amitabh's feet. I shook hand with Abhishek. Then I smelt my hand, what a beautiful smell I felt! Abhishek touching my cheeks told, "Thank you dear". Oh! As if I was dreaming!
I had an opportunity to speak with Will Smith, a popular star of Hollywood. He is a very nice person. He has two children of eight years and six years, very sweet. I can recall when I was doing arti to him Mini Mathur asked him to say what was going on. Before Smith said anything I said "I am trying to hypnotize you". We went to his party also. There we had lots of fun, dancing and singing. He taught us how to keep away from tension. I asked him about his struggle period but he didn't want to speak about that. He said he don't want to recall those painful memories.
I am happy that I was in top five and the top among the girls. I am not worried. I think as a total package Amay Date deserved to be Indian Idol. Karunya is also extremely talented. But as Amay is out I want Karunya to be Indian Idol.
