BY PRATIMA ACHREKAR
The auditions for SaReGaMaPa Little Champs, ZEE Marathi, season II was recently held at the Kala Academy. Many children took part in the audition that was held for the first time in Goa.

“Actually, the reason behind hosting such an audition in Goa was that the last time a talented Goan girl singer had to come all the way to Kolhapur to give her auditions. So this season we decided to hold a round of auditions in Goa to avoid having the children travel long distances,” informs Mr Ashwin Patil, executive producer of the show SaReGaMaPa, Little Champs.
On the day of the audition, young children were seen gathered at the premises early with smiles and excitement written all over their faces. Though they were very young, they exuded a lot of confidence. The response was so good that the organisers received 100 entries by morning. The registration counter was left open till late evening on that day and the number of entries could easily have touched anything between seven hundred and thousand. 
The participants were judged on two aspects ‘sur’ and ‘taal’. “Basically, we don’t have any such crucial rounds. For this audition we will only judge if they have an aptitude for singing. Professional training would be given later by musicians as they pass every each round and move ahead,” said Mr Patil.
No one is an expert unless they get some special practice under expert guidance, explains Mr Patil. The young lads were judged by renowned musicians Satyajit Lele, Archis Lele, Vinayak Bake and Mithilesh Pathankar. Mr Patil added, “There is no limit for us. Even if we find 40 good singers from the state we will take them all for the next round.”
The auditions will now move to Nagpur (May 31), Solapur (June 3), Thana (June 7), Nasik (June 16), Aurangabad (June 17), Pune (June 20) and Mumbai (July 3).