And no, we haven't got the spelling wrong -- the Catwalk girl acquired an additional `n' during her recent stint in the US. ``You see, most people there couldn't pronounce my full name. Some called me Anna, others called me Mika. So I decided to make things easier for everyone around.'' Another reason is that Annamika was losing her identity to her first album, since most people, like us, just called her the `Catwalk Girl'.

The petite crooner comes across as full of spunk. And the spirit is evident everywhere in the `Intezaar' video. The audience loves it already, and if its response to a recent live performance at My Kind of Place is anything to go by, the number could well be hitting Numero Uno. You tell Annamika that, and she literally doesn't know how to react except gushing out a grateful `Thanks'.

With her firm grounding in Indian classical music (as a child), and Western pop (as a teeny-bopper), it comes as no surprise that her voice stands out in the crowd. ``I loved to sing, even when I was in Class V or VI. All this is just a natural progression.'' And given a chance, Annamika would just love to do an English album. ``You know, my first demo was for Magnasound, and it was in English, something called `Let's Get Funky'.

Unfortunately, it never saw the light of day, so it eventually came out as Catwalk,'' she says wistfully. Annamika's singing career, ironically, started in the Big Apple, where she sang with a local band called the Yankees, and that's where she got noticed first. She later shifted base to New Delhi and acquired quite a reputation crooning with The Temptations at Le Meridien. That is where Catwalk was born. And for a first album, it did very well in the market, selling over 2.5 lakh units. ``But I think it sold more than that,'' she says with a mischievous note in her voice. Hope the bean counters at Magnasound are reading this.

And those sales figures take on even greater meaning when you look at the competition, from Daler Mehndi to Alisha Chinai. ``I didn't have anything to go by, no godfather, no backing, not even the looks,'' Annamika says. ``It was my talent and confidence that saw me through. And Asha Bhonsle is the best example of how you can succeed by taking that route.''

Today, she has the confidence to get her `Aaja aaja' number made as a video in Los Angeles by a duo who've done it for international stars like Puff Daddy. And her back-up dancers are going to be the same guys whom you see in Toni Braxton or Michael Jackson videos. What's more, five of the eight numbers in Annamika have been written by her. That's pretty good for someone who looks so young. But ask her her age, and you get an answer that's as non-conformist as her image: ``I'm old enough to take my own decisions and young enough to party!''