One week after becoming winner of the GT&T Bollywood Jingle & Song competition, 25-year-old Gail Ann Singh called ‘Priya’ of Port Mourant, Corentyne said she is being treated like a celebrity.
She told The Scene in an interview that it “feels great to be a winner. Everywhere I go people are pointing me out as “the girl who won the Bollywood competition; they are very excited that I won and they would come and congratulate me.”
Gail walked away with the top prize of a Toyota IST motorcar when she was declared the winner at the Grand Finale held at the Albion Community Centre Ground on January 6.
There was loud screaming from the audience when her name was announced with persons commenting that she did a fantastic job and deserved to win.
Copping the second position was Joel Pharous, 22, a singer and accounts clerk who won a prize of $500,000 while Gowradai Pooran, 25, a teach came second and earned a prize of $250,000.
Placing fourth and fifth and earning prizes of $100,000 and $50,000 respectively were Prakash Sadaram and Kamal Rattan, 18.
A graduate in Sociology and in Computer Science from the University of Guyana, Berbice Campus, Gail told The Scene that “winning the competition has been a big step for me and it would make me put so much more in singing.”
She “would have liked everyone to win but there could only be one winner.” She said all the other contestants did well. “Although they did not win,” she said, “everybody is a star.”
The talented singer told this newspaper too that “even if I had not won the competition it would not have stopped me from singing and I must give thanks to God. I had planned that whatever the outcome I was willing to accept it.”
Gail who had deemed the competition a “crucial part of my life” advised persons; “If you know you have a talent you should give it [competition] a shot because you never know what the future has in store for you… try hard and you would be successful.”
She said too: “I did my best; I put a lot into this competition”, which she described as “challenging.”
A talented katak and folk dancer from age eight, Gail is not new to the stage and took part in modelling and singing competitions.
She participated in Bhajan [religious songs] competition around the country and won and was named Melody queen in 2005. Her last success was when she won the Indian Karaoke competition at the Providence Stadium last November.
Regarding the last competition she said, “After I won people who I did not know came up and congratulated me and even said they were doing their own campaigning for me. They told me they liked the way I was singing all along and wanted me to win.”
She was happy to learn too that persons from Essequibo and other parts of the country also voted for her as well as persons living in other countries like Holland, Suriname, Jamaica and New York who had heard her before in competitions.
Coming from a family of singers, she said her mother, Savitri and father; Hangad had won competitions at the mandir level while her brother, Bashkar is a chutney singer involved in a band in Trinidad.
Since winning, she is also being called on to “sing all the songs I sang for the competition when I [attend] functions.”
At the World Hindu Day observances held last week at the UG Tain Campus, she was warmly welcomed and congratulated after it was recognised that the “the Bollywood star is in the house.”
There, too, she was asked to perform and Gail who started singing from a young age gladly went forward, saying “I cannot refuse when I am called upon to sing.”
She had gone along to that event with her mentor, Dr Ramesh Sugrim, a private practitioner of Williamsburg, who had to sing.
According to her, Dr Sugrim was the one who encouraged her to enter the competition because he knew she had the talent and ability.
She recalled that at first she told him she was not interested but he went ahead and brought her the application form. When it was time for the audition and “a couple hundred people” showed up “I got nervous because I did not know what was going to happen.”
Once she was selected she “had a lot of confidence in myself and although the other singers were wonderful, I did not see any of them as a real competition; I tried not to be afraid of them.”
Gail said “none of the contestants had positive comments from the judges,” and although she had her share of criticism she did not let that bother her.
The singer who currently works with Dr Sugrim as a nurse said it was not her intention to work in the medical field because she wanted to do law. But she got to like it and would further her studies in that area.
Among the other persons who inspired and encouraged her to stay focused on the competition was her uncle; Looknauth Persaud of Kings Jewellery World.
