Indian Idol, that is what I've always dreamed about. I thought that this show was genuine and encouraged sheer talent.
I believed that this show could create miracles, but after going for the auditions in Mumbai, I had a completely different opinion.
I got a text message on 15th of May, 2012 that I had been shortlisted for Indian Idol audition on 18th May at Thakur Public School, Mumbai. I was so happy that I couldn't resist telling about it to my near ones. My dad granted me permission and I was off to Mumbai. I am a resident of Siliguri, West Bengal, so I took a flight to Mumbai and reached Mumbai on 17th May.

Mumbai was completely new to me so we stayed in a Hotel near Malad East. The next day, i.e, 18th I got up at 8 am, and reached the venue at 9:30 am. There was a huge Que of thousands of aspirants who were waiting from may be 6am or even before that in the morning. I got into the line and I was given a token no: 1324, my Indian Idol code was : MUM16579, finally at around 12, we entered the school ground, only some thousand of us were allowed to enter the school at 12 noon.

There was this big ground and at the center, there was a big stage where Sree Ram (Winner of Indian Idol 5 ) was performing. Actually he was not performing, but they were recording some video of his for the opening show which will be aired on 1st of June. At first we were all excited, but as time passed and the no of takes increased, we all lost all the excitement that we had at the beginning of the day. The sun was shining at its peak, there was no shade in the ground, no arrangement for food, etc..
We were just standing there, thousands of us, like fools, because all the Indian Idol crew needed was a free crowd for their video shoot.
Time passed without any progress (except the video shoot). And now the summer son started working on us. Finally the first announcement was made. People with token no 1 to 300 were asked to stand in a line. Slowly they moved into the school building. It took them atleast 1 and a half hours to move into the building, this process continued and at about 4:30 in the evening it was announced that people with token no 1300 to 1600 were supposed to form a line, I hurried as I thought that the time was near. But this time, the movement was really very very slow. It took us more than 2 hours to enter the building. It was really very difficult for all of us to stand in the sun, no water, no food, nothing, really very poor arrangement. We entered the building at around 7pm where we were registered and were given a form and asked to move upstairs.

When we reached upstairs, we were made to sit in the hall. At that time, there were about 800-1000 participants in the hall, all waiting to be auditioned. Again the same shooting started, this time it was Mini Mathur, she stood among-st the crowd and there were as many as 5-6 retakes. It was 9pm now.! And we did not see signs of us being auditioned.
People in the front row got furious, I saw 20-30 people stand up and then they started shouting, soon more people joined in, and a rift broke out between the organizers and the participants. Then the organizers said that within 30 minutes we will be auditioned, soon we were called in groups of 10 and were taken to the audition room at around 9:15 pm.
Some of the participants were so tired that they didn't want to go for the audition any more. We entered the room where we were auditioned by a local judge, yes a local judge, we have been waiting since morning only to be auditioned by a local judge whom no one has ever heard about, she was so casual that it seemed she was least interested about our audition, she was looking out of the window and asked the guy in the extreme right to sing, he was hardly given 15 seconds to sing and then he was interrupted and the next person was asked to sing. That poor guy forgot the lyrics of the song and asked for a second chance, but was refused. Imagine that.! I was at no 5 and it was my turn now, I sang one song, then the lady asked me to sing some other song. I did that, then we went to the results room, where out of 30-35 candidates, only three were selected for the next round including me.
In the next round, there was a different Judge and I alone was asked to sing, again I sang 2songs, the Judge then asked me to go to the results room. I don't know how, but the result reached the room before I did. and all 30 of us were rejected.

There are certain things I noticed that proves that this program is a total fake:
1) These guys call some 10000 people so that they can show it on camera that people are so enthusiastic about the show.
2) None of the participants are ready to come on camera because we all are too tired, but they give dialogues like : "Common Indian Idols, last take please cooperate, you people will come on nation TV, etc"
3) The form that we got was a big form requiring various details, but we were asked to write our name and sign it. It was clearly mentioned that incomplete and forms without photograph will not be accepted. When I asked one of the officials, he was like : 'You can fill the form later once you are selected'.
4) After the rift broke out, we were quickly rushed to the audition room, where we were given hardly 15 seconds to sing.
5) Results reached the result room much earlier than we did.

All that I want to say is that these programs just use the presence of crowd in order to gain TRP and make the program popular.
They just had to select some 20 people from Mumbai, and once that was done, the others were auditioned just for the sake of it.
I met people with classical coaching of more than 10 years and they were not selected. People who were financially not that strong had started saving since a year to come to Mumbai and try their luck. We were there for a singing competition, not an adventure camp where they were checking our endurance level by keeping us hungry for more than 12 hours.
This is a technique of Organized Cheating and I feel that something must be done. I had to bear Rs. 30,000 as flight expenses to reach the venue on time, I could do that because thankfully I come from a financially stable family, but what about people who are not lucky as I am, what about people who come there with a dream, a false hope.

I want the whole country to know about the Reality of this program, so that no no one else is cheated in the future.
Please do the needful.
If you want to talk to me personally, I will be available at: +********0104

Thank You,
Aman Goyal.