#sob rule

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Having VERY STRONG kids should not be in show biz feelings. My family and I rewatched little Azmat Hussain’s run on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs for years after it aired. Such an incredible voice, such a fiery little ten year-old personality, spunky, ambitious, captured the hearts of everyone etc etc etc you can find videos of little him around and you can be amazed. Little Azmat was SO popular. He had stages with Shah Rukh Khan, legendary singers sang his praises literally, etc etc etc etc.

He came on Indian Idol like 8 years - so almost half his life - later, because he saw his fellow Lil Champs contestant win it the year before. One of the judges immediately recognized him and went into super fan mode and was so excited. He revealed (and Indian Idol set this to a very disturbing reenactment) that he worked for a while as a kid and it helped his family get by, but then his voice changed because #puberty and everyone dropped him and said his voice was trash right away, he fell into a deep depression, could no longer listen to music - much less sing and train in it, became heavily addicted to substances and lost all of his money in that world (again, mind you - he was 18 at this point, he saw his friend on the show the previous year when he was 17 so he was that age or YOUNGER when all of this happened).

He auditioned with one of the songs he performed as a kiddo and two of the judges said they wanted him to have a shot and one said while he deeply sympathized it was a no for him. The other two encouraged him to develop his skills as he continued on in the competition and return to some semblance of his past self. He said that trying to return to that wasn’t something he was realizing he had the strength to do, but he did end up moving forward in the competition and having fun and he seems to be fine now.

All of that said, it’s just devastating how easy it seems to be to just discard children. He was a SENSATION. He was like ~good TV~. He was a tiny boy from an impoverished background who spent like two years being overwhelmingly praised from all sides before being dropped the second his voice changed - an extremely obvious thing that was going to happen to a 10 year-old fucking child at some point and should’ve been prepared for by whatever teams of people were working with him or whatever.

Like music competitions are so yikes always - all art competitions are yikes because art is inherently a site where there is so much to appreciate. Azmat, voice affected by several years of not nurturing it and also just natural growing person things, still had so many skills if it was time for him to rethink singing. He was an excellent harmonium player, he used to want to compose music - I’ve said this so many times before but imperfect voices are also incredibly interesting to listen to - just look at the range of music that exists and is loved in this world. This baby whose childhood was so incredibly difficult, whose success made him at ten! years! old! be the one to provide for his family deserved to be told he had so many options!!!! So many options. And the industry should have made way for him. Azmat CAME to Sa Re Ga Ma Pa with immense skill. He already had vocal training and played an accompanying instrument beautifully. What disrupted it was literally something every! one! knew! would! happen! And no one prepared him for it? They blamed him for it? They saw him spiral after patting themselves on the back for being his salvation? Fuck that. FUCK THAT. Fuck using a child like that.

Kiddo - you seem at ease now. Instagram is a weird indicator of anything because idk if having random weirdos worship you is much better but you seem to have a manager and friends and I hope you are having fun and exploring your craft.