Desi Australia Digital Magazine August 2021 Edition

Sagarika practised for her solo production, “Bhakthi” along with her preparation for the year 6 Selective Schools exam. When questioned about the choice of the concept, she said, “As I said earlier my strength lies in my expressions and I wanted to bring out my devotion in dance, my mom and I decided that ‘Bhakthi’ is one of the hardest bhavams to work on for a 11-year-old like me and would be a good challenge to take on”. She acknowledges that she is extremely fortunate to have her mother as her guru, who explained the characters and their emotions in detail. This helped her understand and grasp them better. The 2-month long training was intense. Of all the different stories of Bhakthi presented, my absolute favourite was the one depicting Lord Hanuman. Sagarika brought out the mischievous nature of the monkey-God very well. Incidentally, that is

Sagarika knows what her strengths are as a dancer, and this is a great quality to have. When asked to elaborate, she says with a smile, “My expressions. I can bring any character to life as I feel the character. I also feel grace is also my biggest strength and of course, along with my smile”. She is of the strong belief that, “Lots of style and grace in dancing is definitely required for a dancer”. For someone as young as her, Sagarika takes the accolades she receives with a maturity way beyond her years. She is delighted that people who come to watch her perform, enjoy her performance, and feel a connection. “If your audience can’t relate to you, I guess they would be bored. So definitely there must be something right that I am doing”, she remarks.

Wish you the very best, Sagarika! Looking forward to more amazing performances by you.

Finally, Sagarika’s message to all aspiring, young dancers is never to give up and to be consistent, patient and extremely committed. “Bharatanatyam is not something that one can learn overnight, it does take a lot of time and effort to learn this art form, sometimes it can be tiring physically, but the outcome is just brilliant”. When asked where she sees herself in the next two years, she said, “I love the space I am in at the moment. I want to learn more, train more, perform more which will help make me a better dancer. I want to travel the world performing. And we have plans on that”.

seriously and is considering it as one of her careers in the future. Though the love for Bharatanatyam has consumed her life, she balances it well with academics. When asked about her daily routine, she says, “To be honest I don’t do any other extra curriculars due to lack of time. My focus is only on my academics and dance. I train about 20-30 hours a week in dance. After my school, I train about three weekdays and on weekends. My life is all about dance and studying.” She has watched her mother multitask and feels she is able to do it too. She has a well-structured routine that gives her ample time to focus on her schoolwork and practice dance. She understands that a dancer needs to have patience and commitment in abundance to be able to excel.

Meet the Voice Behind

Jalebi Baby

young artists trying to find their mark? A: Social media today is inundated with so much content, and a lot of people out there are trying to make a mark, so you have to be unique. But even that can go either way. You can be too unique and people won’t care or you can be unique enough that you stand out and people take a liking towards you; so what do you do? I’d say first and foremost, pick a bunch of people who have more followers than you and don’t be shy or afraid to reach out to them. They might not respond but it doesn’t hurt to try and crosscollaborate or do live sessions with them because that’s how you learn and grow.

But to be quite honest, for me it’s quality over quantity. You can have 10 million followers, but sometimes I don’t even know how many are real or not. That’s the other problem with social media where you can buy likes; you can buy followers and you can buy comments. You can buy literally anything and create this perception to the world that, oh, I’m so great. But that’s not what it should be about. Your work should speak for itself. If you sing a song and it touches people’s hearts and people start following you for that reason, that’s more important.

Nigam. And if you ask about female artists, I would say Sunidhi Chauhan because she’s got a very different voice. For international artists, I’d say Celine Dion and Whitney Houston. I’ve got pretty diverse range of artists that I enjoy listening to.

pandemic and the lockdown, one of the things that ended up being the highlight of my career was Jalebi Baby! I remember I got a message from Tesher saying he was working on a song called Jalebi Baby for which my voice and tone would be perfectly suited. The interesting thing is that he initially told me my voice would be used for the background vocals. I had no idea it would end up being the hook of the song! And it all happened really quickly. I had a set up in my house with a laptop and microphone and I recorded those two words and sent it across. Two weeks later my friend tells me the song is out and my vocals are all over it. So that’s how it all happened; and the amount of love and admiration I’ve been receiving since has been amazing. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger; and suddenly everyone was talking about Jalebi Baby and dancing to it on Instagram and TikTok, and even at the Olympics.

Q: You are able to sing in so many languages – how did that come about? A: My parents are actually multilingual. Even though I’m South Indian by background, I mostly spoke Hindi. My mum can also speak Konkani because she was from Mangalore so I would speak Konkani. Whilst being raised in Dubai, it was mandatory to learn Arabic in school; so that’s how I learnt Arabic as well. I was raised in a household where there was a lot of languages spoken and it also helped listening to music from different languages and watching different regional movies; so I think that’s why languages come easily to me. Whether I’m given lyrics in Hindi, Punjabi or Tamil, I find it pretty easy to follow; and all credit goes to my parents.

Q: What are your plans from this point on? What can your fans look forward to? A: So I have a song that I’m working on called “Doli” and I can’t wait to release it. I think every Indian girl will relate to it because it’s a fun wedding song which says “tu aake zara mere doli sajaa ja”, so she’s basically asking the guy to decorate her palanquin and take her with him. I’m working on that and a few other originals. But for now, people can look out for “Doli”.

Q: What do you think are the most important characteristics an artist needs to have to succeed? A: I think being original and finding your own sound, your own style, and just writing down your ideas. That’s how I made my first two songs: Jee Le and Ajooba.

Q: What do you do outside of singing – what are your other hobbies? A: I think I have a seed of acting in me somewhere. Right now, I’m obsessed with this one girl who does these funny videos of how Punjabi aunties talk and I try and imitate her just for fun! Apart from that, I enjoy dancing and catching up on my Netflix.

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu (born 8 August 1994) is an Indian weightlifter. She won the silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Women’s 49 kg.[2][3][4][5] Mirabai Chanu has won the World Championships and multiple medals at the Commonwealth Games. She was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India for her contributions to the sport. She was awarded Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award by the Government of India in 2018.[6]

Chanu won the silver medal in the women’s 48 kg weight class at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Glasgow; she went on to break the games record en route to the gold medal at the 2018 edition of the event held in Gold Coast. Prior to the 2020 Summer Olympics, her biggest achievement came in 2017, when she won the gold medal at World Weightlifting Championships held in Anaheim, California

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu was born on 8 August 1994 in Nongpok Kakching[7] about 30 km away from Imphal city, Manipur[8] to a Meitei family. Her family identified her strength when she was just 12. She could easily carry a huge bundle of firewood home when her elder brother found it hard to even pick it up.

Most of Australia was left speechless, except of course the incomparable Bruce McAvaney who always has the right thing to say.

Australia finishes its campaign in Tokyo with 17 gold medals, the equal most of any Olympic Games along with Athens 2004. After disappointing returns in London and Rio, it’s certainly a welcome change as we have struggled in recent Olympic Games.

And didn’t we have some performances to be proud of? A new generation of athletes broke through to lead the way while some of

It was also one of the most-watched Games with so many Australians in lockdown with nothing to do but cheer our Aussies on.

We combed through all the moments, and trust us, we watched them all, to put together the top ten Australian moments from the Tokyo Olympic Games.

To come back and win an Olympic bronze medal at the first time Surfing is being held at the Olympics? An inspirational moment that won’t be forgotten anytime soon.