by Subhash K Jha

It could be called the 'last ditch' effort. At the pen-ultimate moment when Sony Entertainment's Indian Idol zeroed in on the final three finalists, Akshaye Khanna and his Shaadi Se Pehle director Satish Kaushik who were supposed to have been star-judges this week decided to opt out at the eleventh hour precipitating a crisis of sorts in the organization.

Fortunately Sony found the perfect replacement. "We were very happy to have Vishal and Shekhar as the judges this week, mainly because it's always more entertaining to have musicians who know what they're talking about," says a Sony source.

Vishal-Shekhar have judged tv music contests before and are known to be extremely penetrating in their comments. This week's episode was critical since one of the three finalists—Karunya, Anuj and Sandeep—had to go.

Says Shekhar of Vishal-Shekhar, "I think music contests like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and Indian Idol are doing a fantastic service to the music industry. The talent being served up is truly outstanding. We've served as judges on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa before. This is our first time on Indian Idol, and we're quite looking forward to it."

Doesn't Shekhar feel there should be talent contests to discover composing talent? "I don't think so. There're enough composers. We need more singers."

And for the record, Vishal-Shekhar didn't charge any fee to judge the Indian Idols. "Farah Khan called us and asked us to be on the show, that's it," says Shekhar.