Does Tatsiana's name ring a bell? Do Tanvi, Archana, Natasha and Aarohi mean anything to you? No? Well, less than a few months ago, the four girls were crowned the Get Gorgeous girls by Channel [V]. And the well endowed Tatsiana was the winner of the Dubai Item Bomb contest. Ah! Now you
remember!

There are more in store. Sahara has crowned its Mr and Miss Bollywood, the Zee Cinestars are about to be unveiled, the Indian Idol is lurking somewhere among the thousands of aspirants and [V]'s Super Singer is waiting to be unearthed by Adnan Sami. Is Bollywood waiting with bated breath for the
talent about to be unleashed on the industry? More importantly, apart from the ratings that the telecast of the hunts get the channel, is real talent emerging from the much hyped searches?

Tatsiana will get her two minutes of glory gyrating to an item number in Musafir, and the 30 Sahara finalists have been promised roles in the company's banner films to be telecast on the channel in the coming year. A million rupee contract awaits the Indian Idol. After that, what? Will they be real winners like Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan, results of talent hunts in the past? Ken Ghosh who ferreted Shahid Kapur through a talent search himself, laughs when confronted. "We will know in a couple of years," he says. "Films," he avers, "are a director's medium. Finally, how the winners shape up, will depend on several factors."

Another moot point is the involvement of the audience in the final selection of the winners. Are the viewers a competent enough judge of talent? Will a few score SMSes determine who is equipped to become the next Bachchan or Lata of the Hindi film industry? Ghosh is critical of the level of audience
involvement in deciding the final winners of the hunts. "You need professional judgement to decide real talent. Viewers could be swayed by different reasons for voting for a particular person." Defending the
Cinestars Khoj, Ghosh however points out that the girl with the best face among the participants was voted out, thanks to the judges enlightening the viewers.

And then again, in this age of packaging and presentation, will looks matter more than talent? Audiences across the country get a look and feel of the contestant and his personality before judging the singer and the idol. Earlier, actor Jaaved Jaaferi whose Boogie Woogie was one of the precursors
of the current talent hunt wave, has scoffed at the idea of the hyped up hunts, saying true talent is rarely recognised. His argument that the winners often eventually fade into oblivion also holds water. With a plethora of channels out to make telefilms including Zee and mega companies like Sahara churning out feature films by the dozen, can any one face stand out? The production factories are securing acting talent for next to nothing, and the channels are reaping the harvest of TRPs.

Among the hunts for the singers, while the judges are doing most of the arduous work, including sitting through, at times, painful auditions in the tiniest of cities, the winner's selection will again rest with the viewers with their finger poised over their cellphones.

AXN which was one of the first to realise the potential of the hunt with its Hot N Wild contest last year, has preferred to stay quiet and watch from the sidelies till the hype dies away, says AXN India's Rohit Bhandari.Despite names like Indian Idol, Super Singer and Item Bomb, it remains highly unlikely that many of these names were remain in public conscious for over a year. Will it then herald a return of the hunters?