Bathinda’s shoe-shiner croons his way to top 15 in Indian Idol
HAVING HAD NO FORMAL TRAINING IN SINGING, SUNNY WAS INSPIRED BY HIS FATHER NANAK RAM WHO USED TO SING AT FAIRS
BATHINDA: The shoe shine boy has reached another milestone in the popular TV show Indian Idol by making it to the top 15. Leaving the judges and audience stunned with his power packed performance from Day One, Bathinda’s Sunny won his second ‘golden mike’ on Saturday night with his rendition of legendary singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Mera piya ghar aya’.
As the story of this self-taught singer from humble beginnings went viral, the likes of cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar and business tycoon Anand Mahindra also shared the Sunny’s story on social media.
Sharing a video clip of the 21-year-old singer’s performance on Twitter, Mahindra, on Sunday, challenged the public to stay dry-eyed. He wrote: “Diwali is the perfect day to learn about people who rise. A friend sent me this saying he was in tears watching it. Find the whole clip on Youtube & I challenge you to remain dry-eyed. TV & social media have done us a great service: Discovering talent in the humblest locations”. Speaking to Hindustan Times over the phone from Mumbai, Sunny said he was happy he had performed well in the show and will focus on doing better in the competition. “I do sing all kinds of songs but I love singing qawwalis,” he said.
In his first performance in the audition for Indian Idol, Sunny sang another of Khan’s greats– Afreen Afreen–which earned him his first ‘golden mic’.
Having had no formal training in singing, Sunny was inspired by his father Nanak Ram who used to sing at fairs. After his death, the adolescent had to drop out of school after class 6, and to make ends meet, he also took to shining shoes outside the Interstate bus terminus in Bathinda, while his mother Soma Devi sells balloons. The family lives in a two-room house with a makeshift kitchen in Amarpura Basti.