Anuja Vijayan and Meghana Jayaraj, Kolkata, West Bengal

Bhopal Regional Round of the K-Pop India Contest 2021 was broadcast live on October 16, 2021, at 2:00 p.m. IST on the Korean Cultural Centre India’s YouTube page. The event was coordinated by Madhya Pradesh Korean Fanclub/MPKFC Hallyuwave. Here is the statement of the winners of the Dance and Vocal Categories, as well as the Regional Round organizer, on their experiences with this event.

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Dance Category

Mayur Gurung (Winner)

Hello, 안녕하세요 everyone my name is Mayur Gurung. I am from a very small city of Madhya Pradesh call Chhindwara. This time I won in the Dance Category of Bhopal Regional Round. I am very happy and proud to win this round. I feel very much honored to represent Bhopal Region in K-pop India Contest 2021 for the dance category. Before sharing my experience I really want to thank the organisers of our regional round who arranged the whole event so well. I really love this competition. When I came to know about the competition this year, I thought to myself that no matter what happens, even if I die, I will participate in this competition. Even after winning Bhopal Regional Round, I feel like it’s still a dream. I really enjoyed sharing my K-Pop love and also my precious first K-POP experience with other contestants. Knowing about other contestants’ experiences about K-POP fever I came to realise why and how much we all love K-POP, how much we appreciate the songs, and how important it is to us. Also, I want to give a big thanks to the organizers of our Regional Round because whenever we faced any problems they were always ready to solve them. They were helping us a lot and made us feel so comfortable. They appreciated our performances and had fun conversations with us. Talking to them, we never felt like there was any pressure on us because of the competition.

We all know how hard-working and persistent the K-Pop Idols are towards their work and fans. Seeing their hard work gives me courage and inspiration to have the determination to do anything in your life, and that you can accomplish everything. I am following MONSTA X since the reality show called No Mercy and after watching them I know how hard it is to be a K-Pop artist. They faced so many problems while trying to achieve their dream but they made it and became an idol. They’re still inspiring me a lot and this K-POP India contest 2021 is the only way to show my love for MONSTA X, the Korean culture, and also all the other K-Pop artists that I love so much. 사랑해요.

Krash Dubey (First Runner Up)

Hello there you all, my name is Krash Dubey and I was born and brought up in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. As you all know, that I’m the first runner-up in the Dance category from the Bhopal region. Therefore, the overall experience as a participant in this year’s K-pop contest was absolutely fantastic. To be very honest, this was my first K-Pop contest and I had no idea that I’ll ever go to the finals. However, it happened and that was for real. So, I prepared myself for the final event and see that I ended up becoming the first runner-up in this year’s contest under the dance category.

So, it all started when I first saw a K-pop band’s song on the internet. This band is now the most popular boy band in the world and their name is ‘BTS’ which stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan. Just because of them, I work hard and strive all day and night to become a very popular K-pop star similar to them. That’s the only reason why I participated in this contest and represented myself so that I can learn & experience, how it feels to be on the internet? How does it feel when everyone is watching you, admiring you, loving you and your art or performance? Therefore, I would say that BTS and yeah also the other K-pop bands are my only inspiration. 

Kunika Kharonia (2nd Runner Up)

Hello, I’m Kunika Kharonia, 2nd runner up (Dance category) of the Bhopal regional round. I had lot of fun and enjoyed this event to the fullest. This event itself is such a great inspiration as we all get a platform to show our talents and enthusiasm for K-Pop. Although due to covid-19 we were not able to meet physically, the greatest thing is that I got to know a lot of new personalities and made new friends through this event. And lastly, I would like to thank all the admins who contributed to making this event a success.

Vocal Category

Yashaswini Joshi (Winner)

Hello, my greetings to everyone. I am Yashaswini Joshi. I am the winner of the Bhopal Regional Round of the K-Pop India Contest 2021 in the Vocal category. This year’s K-Pop Contest was definitely a vibe. The virtual contest would definitely be different from the offline one but it holds its own entertainment. We got to see ourselves go live on YouTube and the experience was beyond my expectations. Every contestant was wonderful and I congratulate all of them for successfully presenting their performances.

There were a wide variety of performances and indeed it eventually became a tough competition as everyone was excellent in their genres. I was thrilled performing in this contest and a bit nervous at the same time. In the vocal category, I found everyone had their own genres they were confident in and they performed it in their own way yet kept it original. I chose those types of songs that suited my voice and it was quite a task to accomplish. Finding a perfect song for yourself and then performing it the original way made things way more interesting. The organizers were very helpful and cleared every doubt I had in mind. They were cooperative and very friendly. They even encouraged us in every step of the contest. I was happy to be a part of this contest and I would definitely be encouraging people to take part in this contest to widespread K-Pop in India. 

Learning about different cultures is one of my recreations. After getting to know about Korean Culture, I was drawn to it to such an extent that I listened to K-Pop all day. Millions of Korean artists give their best to create music and express themselves to people from all over the world, breaking the barrier of language through their songs. Their music is healing to my mind. I was very amazed at how music creates change in your life. And it was so, for me. Music is its own language that doesn’t require an understanding of the listener. I could easily remember the lyrics of the songs I heard in the day yet, intrigued by the beauty of Korea and its culture, I started learning the language and in no time I was able to sing fluently in Korean. I was fascinated when I learned what meanings each and every song holds.  I thought about making this skill useful and then one day, I saw this contest being conducted on social media. I thought of it as a chance for me to learn and grow as who knows what life holds for you in the future. So, I took a deep breath and applied for this contest. My mother and my friends supported me all the way and encouraged me to give my best. 

 Suhani & Vibhuti Lal (First Runner-up)

Hello, we are Suhani and Vibhut Lal. We were the 1st runner-up in the vocal category in the K-Pop Contest 2021, Regional round of Bhopal. First of all, we would like to thank the Korean Cultural Centre India and all the respective organizers for conducting this wonderful K-Pop Contest event in India.

In this event, Every K-Pop fan can showcase their singing and dancing talent. Everything in the event was supper smooth and interesting as well. First, we gave out entries for the 1st round of the contest that is online round, and after someday we got our results who were going to the 2nd round (10 from vocal 10 from dance category) and luckily we were selected for the second round from the vocal category and then we gave our covers respective to our category then this round was conducted live in YouTube of Korean Cultural Centre India Bhopal region and then we got our results for the final round and we both were the 1st runner up of regional round Bhopal. So, we will give our best for the next year’s K-Pop contest 2022 and will look forward to going to the final round as well.

In this whole process, we met a lot of K-Pop fans even though everything was online we couldn’t meet in person but meeting online was also a different kind of experience. Hope to meet more in person next year. Being a K-Pop fan it is really an amazing golden opportunity to show our love for K-Pop /Korean Culture, and show our abilities and win exciting prizes, and meet a lot of K-Pop fans across India Inspired us to take part in the K-Pop contest.

Diksha Tiwari (Second Runner-up)

Namastey, I am Diksha Tiwari, Second runner-up of the K-Pop India Contest 2021 Regional round in the Vocal category from the Bhopal region. Being a part of this contest is a huge thing for me, I got a chance to connect with so many talented people also I learned so many things as it was my first time participating in a contest like this. I secured the third position in the Regional round which was totally unexpected. I got to know where I stand in this crowd of so many talented people. So overall it was a wonderful experience I can never forget about.

Well, honestly I wasn’t really sure about participating because I’m not a trained singer but singing is my passion and this contest could help me in improvising my music skills. Also, I believe that music has no language barriers and I worship music a lot. Apart from this I really like the concept of k-pop music where you get a chance to show multiple things you are good at and definitely, BTS inspired me to grow more as an artist and respect the art of music even more. And most importantly my mom always motivates me to sing. I participated to make my parents feel proud of me.

Regional Organiser

Madhya Pradesh Korean Fanclub

Madhya Pradesh Korean Fanclub (MPKFC) was founded in 2018 by Monica Sankule and since then she’s been actively conducting offline and online activities. The fan club has been actively involved in organizing various events to promote K-pop and Korean Culture since then. K-pop Contest Bhopal Regional Round is one of the many events organized by MPKFC every year. By profession in the HR domain, she has been into Korean culture for the last 10 -12 years. Her immense interest in learning further made her step up a level and go up for learning language and culture directly from native Koreans. She’s actively working with her team and Korean YouTube influencers to promote not only K-Pop but everything related to the Korean language, culture, tradition, music, food, etc.

Hi, I am Hency and have been interested in K-pop since 2017. I became a part of MPKFC community in 2019 and since then I’ve volunteered for K-pop Contest Bhopal Regional’s every year. I am usually responsible for communicating with the participants and helping them with their queries. This year we saw a tremendous change in applications of participants participating in K-Pop contest. Crossing a border of 120+ entries for the first round was overwhelming. So many talented contributions could be seen on digital platform (due to Covid) performing on their favorite song both in vocal and dance category. Selecting out of them for the finale was a tough decision as incredibly everyone has a strong choice in flavor they produced on stage but yes everyone was awesome. I wish our final participants all the best for their future endeavors in this field.

You can watch Bhopal Regional Round here: