Local singers hog Filmfare South Awards

For several years now, south Indian film music has been besieged by ‘Bollywood’ singers, what with the likes of Sonu Nigam, Kailash Kher and Shreya Ghoshal even sweeping most awards in the playback category. The list of winners at the 60^thIdea Filmfare Awards Southon Saturdaywas refreshing though. Across all four regional industries, ‘local’ singers took home the black lady.
While Bangalore boy Avinash Chebbi and Mysore gal Indu Nagaraj got the honours for Best Playback Singers for Kannada, actor-singer Dhanush and Chennai girl NSK Ramya won for Tamil.In the Telugu section, Vadepalli Srinivas and Suchitra won the awards, while legendary singer Yesudas’s son Vijay Yesudas and singer Sujatha Mohan’s daughter Shwetha Mohan won it in Malayalam. In fact, Indu, Dhanush and NSK Ramya are all first-time Filmfare winners as playback singers. While Avinash won for his rendition of Ellello Oduva Manase from Sidlingu (the film which also got Vijayaprasad a Best Director Award and Suman Ranganathan the Best Supporting Actor Female Award), Indu’s recognition came for her song Pyaarge Agbittaithe from the movie Govindaya Namaha. In fact, Chetan, who sang the song along with her was also nominated.The song, picturized on Komal and Parul Yadav, was a viral hit.