Sanskriti Pun and Smiti Iyer, New Delhi

Delhi Regional Round of the K-Pop India Contest 2021 was conducted online on 24th October 2021 from 12 Noon onwards (IST) on the YouTube page of Korean Culture Centre India. Here is an excerpt from the statements of the winners in the dance and vocal category as well as the experience of the organiser of the Regional Round, Korean Culture India Fan Club.

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Dance Category

Girl Crush (Winner)

Members: Sarah Lalsanhim, Prabhleen Kaur, Samriddhi Zita Bilung, Chhavi Ahlawat, Somirin Shinglai, and Chhimi Lama

Hello, we are Girl Crush, winners of the Delhi Regional Round, Dance category. We are extremely honored and stoked to be having that title especially after seeing all the amazing and talented contestants this year. We’re a dance crew residing in Delhi who mainly covers K-Pop songs. We’ve been participating in the K-Pop Contest India since 2016 and were the Finalists in 2017 as well. We contemplated a lot whether to participate again this year or not because of COVID-19 but our eagerness to dance and compete together didn’t stop us. All 6 of us coming and practicing together was definitely a huge task because of the pandemic situation and we didn’t want anyone to be at any risk.

However, despite all the challenges we worked together and overcame them together. Seeing a female crew win in this competition, especially in Delhi, is quite a rare sight, to be honest, and being able to represent Delhi in the Finale is a huge accomplishment for us and was one of our biggest motivations. K-Pop for us is not only just a genre of music, it’s our happy place where we feel the most comfortable and free. We’ve always idolized K-Pop idols and the hours of hard work and dedication they put in their work. Stepping into a somewhat similar lane of work made us respect these artists more. We love K-Pop, dancing and performing so this competition is the best place for us to quench our thirst. We’re extremely grateful to the staff for always being there for us and the people who show us their genuine support, which makes us want to work even harder.

Kush (First Runner-up)

Hello everyone, I’m Kush, the first runner-up of the Delhi Regional Round in the Dance Category. This year’s K-pop competition has shown me an amazing atmosphere and I even became a winner among all the dedicated people! And that’s a pleasure for me. Also, I’m very stunned by the talent and power of every other region, everybody’s energy was on another level. The support from the organizer has genuinely made everything work out for me. Even when I was curious about common things they solved my issue within seconds. I’ve been seeing this championship for the past few years and seeing such amazing people wanted me to test my skills and I wanted to see what I was capable of doing, and seeing others win motivated me the most, so that’s why I decided to hop on it.

XKrew (Second Runner-up)

Members:

James – Bishwas Thapa, Kenny – Kamal Bahadur Thapa, Kenneth – Manish Thapa, Jeff – Jeffery Robert, Vicky – Vijay Arya, Veeshal – Veeshal Paul, Dimong – Yash Singh

Hello everyone. This is XKREW, the second runner-up of the Delhi Regional Round in the Dance Category. We are really thankful to KCCI for providing every single one of us with the greatest opportunity to show how much we love K-Pop and the Korean culture. We were really honored to get the third position this year. As a group people don’t know who we are, who is XKrew, so we wanted the people to know who we are and how much we love K-Pop. Since 2017, we the XKrew dreamt of leaving a mark as a group in K-Pop contest, but to put an impact takes a lot more than we thought, and we at XKrew are proud of being a group from Delhi because Delhi is the state which has many talented groups and K-Pop enthusiastic people.

During Covid, it was hard for us to practice together, sometimes we had hard times, sometimes good, we enjoyed every single part of our life during covid, we didn’t take it in a negative way, we took it in a positive way, and gave time for improvement. Covid-19 surely did a lot of things to make it hard for us but we stood strong and kept our minds set for the K-pop contest, and surely a huge amount of talented artists were participating and we are honoured to compete with them and learn. We try we fail but we never lose. We always learn something different from every failure, and we would really like to thank the management team who managed this K-Pop contest 2021, thanks for their efforts and help throughout the competition. Surely K-Pop contest 2021 India was something special. THANKS A LOT TO KCCI FOR GIVING US THIS OPPORTUNITY AND WE WILL ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL TO KCCI!

Vocal Category

Melissa Caroline Winter (Winner)

Hi, I’m Melissa Caroline Winter, winner of the vocal category for the Delhi region. This year’s K-Pop Contest has been amazing, I never thought I would be a winner for the regional rounds as there were many amazingly talented beautiful people. The coordination of the organizers and the supportive participants have been a joy to be around. 

For the past few years, I have been deeply involved in K-culture and Music, my inspiration for participating has to be Jessie and BTS, and my passion to be different from the rest. Jessie has given me a sense of self-respect, self-motivation that if you really want it you can do it. BTS has played a very vital role in my life not only are they role models but they have been my biggest inspiration in terms of being content and happy with what I love doing. In my darkest days, they have been a guiding light and gave me a chance to explore my artistic side more. This is the reason why I took a shot at participating. 

Prachi Sharma (First Runner Up)

Annyeonghaseyo! I am Prachi Sharma, the first runner-up of Delhi Regional Round, Vocal Category. I tried for the regional round in 2019 as well but didn’t go through it. At that time, I realized it’s not only your vocals but the individuality that matters the most in this competition. Every person today is so talented, so versatile, so I needed to find my individuality so as to be somewhere, find my voice. 

An event can never be a success without the organization and, the organizers in my case were awesome! Prerna di helped a lot to tell our mistakes, the improvements, etc. Thanks to K-dramas and BTS that I got to know about K-Pop and found a comfy place within this world. Saranghae to all the viewers who supported us, the participants means so much to me- you all and this experience I got through the Korean Culture Centre of India. Thank you very much.

Vidya R Gaur (2nd Runner Up)

Hey everyone, I’m Vidya R Gaur, the second runner-up in the Delhi Regional rounds, which is still unbelievable for me. This year’s contest was really memorable for me, given the fact that so many people came together in online mode to celebrate talent and love for K-Culture. My K-culture and K-pop journey started with iconic, Gangnam Style. That song just stuck with me. After that, I got into K-pop and K-culture in general. It was fascinating how talented and absolutely gorgeous these idols were. But soon also I learned the hardships behind it and it dragged me in even more. Everyone was so amazing in this year’s contest, and even though I didn’t win but everyone’s talent and hard work have motivated me to work harder and try again. I know it’s very rich to say this but in these trying times, I hope that people were able to enjoy all the performances and for once forget their worries and smile. All the best everyone. Fighting!!!

Regional Organiser

Korean Culture India Fanclub

I, Prerna Tiwari, admin of Korean Culture India Fan Club would like to express my gratitude towards Korean Cultural Centre India, Samsung, Belle Vous, Ultraverse Media, and Hallyuism for organizing and supporting this K-pop Contest. In the second year of the pandemic, the online contest has shown everyone that the love and passion for Korean Culture are still growing strong in India and India may witness huge events in the coming few years. Also with Korean Pop Music, the interest in Korean Dramas and Korean Beauty has also started increasing in India which is helping the Indian audience to get more glimpse of Korean Culture.

The participants in the Delhi Regional Round had been excellent performers and their support for each other was never-ending. I would also like to thank the fans for their never-ending support and love as they have always been an excellent audience.

You can watch the Delhi Regional Round here: