In an interesting turn of events at the Mumbai grand finale of Mahindra Xylo and 94.3 Radio One’s “Time of Your Life” Karaoke contest, for the first time the special wild card entry, Zubin Minoo Sanjana from Apax Partners India Advisors Pvt Ltd won both the “wild entry” and the “grand finale”. The contest was judged by the singing sensations – Raghav Sachar, Shibani Kashyap and Akriti Kakar. Also present on the occasion were Mr. Vivek Nayer, Sr. V.P. Marketing, Automotive Sector, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd along with Mr. Vineet Singh Hukmani, Managing Director, 94.3 Radio One who were also part of the judging panel. The attraction of the evening was a special impromptu karaoke performance by Vineet Singh Hukmani and Akriti Kakar who kept the audience enthralled.
The first runner up was Anshoo Kabra from Airtel while the second runner up was Girish Patel from Mahindra and Mahindra. The contest was held in the city yesterday between participants across 25 companies, like Jet Airways, Godrej Properties, Loop Mobile, Star Union Daiichi, Emirates, Nerolac, Essar, Aviva Life Insurance, Dish TV, Birla Sun Life, Symphony, Acropetal, Madhura Garments, Acer and Schneider among others. Participants indeed had the time of their lives as they grooved to their favourite English and Hindi numbers and got cheered by their colleagues.
This year the contest saw many firsts being included as a part of the championship. Not only is the contest taken beyond Mumbai to other cities like Delhi and Bangalore, but a new category was introduced – Wild Card Entry! Anyone who wanted to participate had to upload their videos on You Tube and the one who gets maximum votes would be the 26th participant in the grand finale. The wild card entrant wins a trip to Goa plus if he wins the grand finale then he gets the trip to Europe as well! The wild card entry, Zubin Minoo Sanjana from Apax Partners India Advisors Pvt Ltd got a whooping number of 53,364 votes for his entry.
Preceding this grand finale, karaoke evenings were hosted in the premises of various corporate offices that are part of the Time of your life Karaoke Contest this year. A series of on the spot contests were held to make the event interactive. The emcee gave out Mahindra Xylo Merchandise to the participants. These were followed by semi‐finals; winners selected from each office represented the company at the Grand Finale. A special practice session for the finalists was arranged at the 94.3 Radio One office 3 days prior to the finals.