I am different from an average 24-year-old : Aditya Narayan

Aditya Narayan started his career as a child artist, a playback singer, as a host with Sa Re Ga Ma Pa on Zee and also as a lead hero. But his debut film sank without a trace and Aditya was back to square one. After a two-year gap he is now back into our lives with Sony’s X-Factor. Talking to TellyChakkar he promises viewers he will be different this time. He also talks about his association with the judges and why is he still single. We have seen you host Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and now you’re back again with X-Factor. It’s great to be hosting another show as it has been two years now. I missed hosting all this while. I was getting a lot of reality shows but I did not want to do them. Some were exactly like what I had done before but when I heard the concept of X-Factor it was different in its core and the audience can relate to it. You went to doing a film. Why a comeback to hosting? There is nothing like I should be doing these many films and then these many reality shows. People have no complaints with me and I have enough time to decide. It’s not that I will follow an order where I will do three films and then a reality show. I love doing TV and so far it’s been great. It has great potential and there are a lot of people involved in it. It’s just been four years my career has started and this is my fifth project so it’s not a deliberate thing. I think it will be too early for me to decide things. You have been an actor, composer, playback singer and a host. What do you personally like doing? In Hollywood, it doesn’t become extraordinary if someone does many things at a time but here people judge you a lot. Jennifer Lopez does a lot of thing from acting to having her own perfume brand and I think that’s fabulous. I just want to do a good job. It’s about cinema, acting, entertaining people so it’s not a big deal if you’re composing or acting. TV just happened by chance and the biggest stars are on TV today. Once I am 30 I will look back at my career to understand and I feel the audience is very patient and they wouldn’t mind waiting for a few more years. How different is X-Factor India from its international formats? It’s not very different from the international format. The only difference is you get to see Indian people and hear Indian music. There is no age bar and there will be duets as well as groups, this is something that’s never seen before. There are going to be different genres of music from classical to Jazz and we are seeing diverse talent here. What exactly is the talent the show is looking for? Which city had the best talent? Honestly, we did not know what kind of talent we would get but it has been phenomenal till now. This is for the first time I have been part of a show from its very start. I meet a bhajiwala who sings fabulously, a middle-aged car driver who can sing and there was also a single mother of two who is a good singer. You will have never seen this sort of talent before. It’s hard to say which city had the best talent as it’s very different from my previous experience where the age group was 16 to 24. The participants were either younger than me or older, and they looked up to me for motivation or probably looked down at me but there was some connect. Here I meet women who are my grandmother’s age or men who are my father’s age. It’s nice to meet them but its different and making a connection with them is important for me as an anchor. Kolkata so far has been good and I hear Delhi is good too but I still have to go there but I can’t exactly say which city has had it best. How different would you say is X-Factor from other singing based reality shows? It is not desh ki awaz or duniya ki sabse khatarnak awaz we are searching for that X-Factor. We do not just want a playback singer we want music that is entertaining. There is no record to be broken but it’s just if you have the X-Factor to entertain the audience in front of you. Do we see a different you on this reality show? Sa Re Ga Ma Pa was not an informal show but this is very informal and it’s western to the core. So the way I talk, the way I dress is going to be informal. I am going to concentrate more on the contestants this time. I want their stories to reach the audience for it’s me who will talk to them. I will be their big brother whether they are younger than me or elder to me (laughs). Do you have any favourites among the judges? All of them for that matter, Sonu (Niigaam) is like an elder brother to me as we have worked together in Lil Champs. Both of us are Leo so we get along very well he treats me like his younger brother and we have been best friends for the last seven years. I was really young when we became friends. I haven’t interacted much with Salim (Merchant) but I love his work and am looking forward to work with him. I have known Sanjay Leela Bhansali for a very long time now and he is not just a director, he is a music composer and music director himself. He is a director with the X-Factor. So, we have a lovely panel of judges and one has four faces to look forward to. Are you in a relationship? No, not at all, I am busy in my head and physically so I don’t think you can have a relationship with someone like me. I am different from an average 24-year-old for I attend meetings, I host shows and I keep travelling to different countries. I am still learning the guitar and vocals so I am too consumed. I do not have time for a relationship and I don’t think any girl would want to be with someone like me. I am never in a frame of mind to think I am missing someone because I am busy all the time. I do have friends who are girls who come to watch movies with me and we spend time together but I am not in a relationship. What do we see you doing next after X-Factor? I might take up a film project but I will consider things post September as that’s when I stop shooting for this. So I think it’s safe to say that you might see me in a film in 2011 or you never know if I will surprise you by doing the next season of X-Factor. Have you already been offered the next season? For me it’s never one season or 10 episodes I believe in being associated with things for long. From the face of it, now the channel seems happy and so am I, you never know.