Drama and suspense, tears and sorrow, joy and ecstasy - Sony television channel's reality show "Indian Idol" is back for the third season. And what makes this season better than the previous two is the quality of the singers.

Young and vibrant with stardust in their eyes, the contestants are gifted with rich and melodious voices.

"We have got some really talented and confident contestants. We have done our bit and we have now put the mantle on the audiences. I am sure they will make the right decision in choosing their 'Bharat ki shaan'," said Udit Narayan, one of the show's four judges.

The judges - Javed Akhtar, Anu Malik, Alisha Chinai and Narayan- selected 123 contestants from 25,000 candidates across India and overseas. Of them, they handpicked 28 aspirants who gave a mind-blowing performance in the piano round that started June 1.

Indrajit Roy, creative director of the show, said they plunged into the preparations for the third innings soon after the second season ended.

"Immediately after wrapping up the second season we started working on the next one. The entire auditioning took two-and-a-half-months. From small cities in India to Dubai and London, we travelled across the globe in search of talent," Roy told.

Asked to name his favourite, Roy rattled off a long list of names. "Shantanu Sudame, Abhishek Kumar, Prashant Tamang, Smita Adhikary, Charu Semwal and Aisha Sayed are awesome. They are hugely talented singers." said Roy.

The elimination process that started June 1 will continue till June 9. The 20 shortlisted boys and girls will enter the next round called gala round. The grand finale will take place in September.

To accommodate the piano round, all the prime time shows of Sony including "Viruddh" and "Durgesh Nandini" have been taken off. These shows will resume their run June 11. From the second week of June "Indian Idol 3" will be telecast on weekends.

"Since we want maximum number of viewers to tune in to Indian idol, we have made this show a daily for a week. The other soaps will return after a week's break on June 11," said a Sony official.

In the first round of elimination from the boy's team Bharat Bhushan and Roshan Singh were voted out. Pinki Maydasani and Rashmi Vijaya are the two girls who had to leave the show because they got the least votes.

"In my elimination, the major factor was poor voting. I didn't get sufficient number of votes because I was not properly highlighted. The public couldn't connect with me.

"I sang 'Firat rahoon' from 'The Killer'. I was a little nervous because I am not camera friendly, but I was satisfied with my performance," said Bharat Bhushan, who will go back to Meerut and pursue his graduation study.

"But I will continue to do shows because my financial condition is not so good," added Bharat.

On the other hand, Roshan Singh was not so happy with the judges especially, Alisha.

"I was shaky during the performance and my performance was ordinary. I wish I had chosen some other song. I sang 'Tum dil ki dhadkan mein'. But I would also like to say that the judging was very poor.

Alisha Chinai's comments, in particular, did not make any sense," said Roshan, who is an engineer and plans to return to Australia to earn his living. "I can't make a living out of singing here."

Both Bharat and Roshan rue that the focus is more on entertainment and singing takes a back seat.

"The entire process of selection is satisfactory but too much drama is involved. The focus is more on reality and less on singing," said Roshan.

"I am not so comfortable in front of camera. For instance, I was asked to pretend that I'm talking to my father and I found it very awkward. I couldn't bring the right emotion," said Bharat.

Roy explained that the moment the public is involved the focus automatically shifts to the reality part.

From STAR to Zee to Sony, all the channels have reality talent hunt programmes but the sad part is that most of the winners and the participants fade away after the show.

"The whole idea is to give these youngsters a platform and exposure they never had. Rest depends on how they take it further," said Roy.