Friday, November 04, 2005

Indian Idle



If none you use an Airtel connection on your Mobile Phone, you might sympathize with me. If you use Airtel, you will empathize with me. In either case, I hope you don't dismiss it as the ramblings of an incorrigible sceptic. But ever since I've started using my mobile phone, I've been getting messages like "Abhijeet Sawant ke saath ek rangeen shaam bitaaen", "Abhijeet Sawant ko vote dene ke liye 09446373518 pe Abhi type karke SMS bhejiye" at annoyingly short intervals. In fact, I wouldn't mind approaching Yahoo to design a spam guard for my message inbox.  

Welcome to Indian television. It was widely believed that the 21st century would see entertainment standards scale giddy heights, in terms of both technology and quality of entertainment. Sadly, the upgradation seems to be in an infinite loop with Stage 1 as the only code block. Inspired by the Reality Show concept, which worked wonders for AXN, major Indian channels have taken a fancy to creating superstars of common men.

Their aim: To give talented youngsters an opportunity to taste fame.
Their definition of fame: 20 crore SMSes from the Indian Idles, streaked hair, a cover story in a leading magazine, high TRP ratings for the channel, plenty of fuss about how The Show transformed them from the-girl-next-door to national icons, interviews on major news channels, etc.
The promise: an album/a movie with a big label, loads of cash, streaked hair, a car, etc.
The contests: Popstars I & II (Channel V), Indian Idol (Sony), SuperSinger(Channel V), Fame Gurukul (Sony)

It is sad to see that the country is accepting singers as idols. With all due respect to the profession, singing is easier than a lot of other things in the world, and definitely not worthy of idolatry. While TV watchers watch the programme more for the drama and politics shown than to fervently hunt for the best singer in the country, the TV channels claim that Reality Shows is the best way of picking jewels from the sand. Unlike singing competitions like Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, the judge in most of these shows is the junta who may know as much about singing as I know about Hebrew. As a result, contestants are judged on a number of parameters other than quality of singing. A contestant who endears himself to the public (by being saccharine, public-savvy, and fun-loving) stands a much better chance than an excellent-but-introverted singer. When questioned about the veracity of their selection process, channels say that the winners will entertain the public and hence the public must choose its preferred entertainer. It doesn’t seem to matter that after their first stage show and the first song of their first album shown for the first time on TV channels, the champions are remembered as much as Ganguly’s last century is.
On this count, even shows like Popstars, where an expert panel was the sole judge, have failed to sustain the hype they created around the winners. After one album with music by Shankar-Ehsan-Loy, Jatin-Lalit, Salim-Sulaiman, Sandeep Chowta, etc. and lyrics by Javed Akhtar, the five Popstars (Viva) were left to fend for themselves. The deal was, ‘we give you a launch-pad, you take the leap.’ But the launch pad launched them with the escape velocity and none of them are on the radar of popular entertainment today.

It is assumed that the winners will be so impressive in their debut album that music directors will queue up with blank cheques. Or Sony and EMI records will fight to sponsor their next album. However well Qazi, Abhijeet, and Neeti sing, Jatin-Lalit will always pick Sonu Nigam and Asha Bhonsle and Sandeep Chowta will always pick Sukhwinder Singh. Most of them, thus, are reduced to be just one-album wonders.  

Two members of Viva left the band, Pratichee cut a solo album with shaded eyes, streaked-hair, fancy clothes, and pathetic sales. Mahua, Neha, and Anoushka (who bunked her board exams to appear in the screening) are non-entities.

Aasma, born from Popstars-II, cut an album (including the (s)hit single Chandu ke Chacha) and now rely on appearances in tele-serials for sustenance. They may be cutting another album but who cares? People were charmed by Neeti’s vivacity, Vasudha’s simplicity, Jimmy’s cool-dude attitude, and Sangeet’s smile. That all four of them can sing better than I is just incidental and insignificant.

Abhijeet Sawant (Indian Idol) may sell his debut album on the back of the video of his first song, but after that Indian Idol-2 will be announced and people will have little interest in persisting with Abhijeet Sawant. The junta is more excited about watching Indian Idol-2 and Fame Gurukul, than about checking on Abhijeet’s progress. My mother voted twice for Abhijeet but didn’t even consider buying her darling’s album. I’m sure she’s not alone. Amit Sana and Rahul Vaidya (the other winners of Indian Idol) also released their albums, but people are keener to know how Qazi, Rex, Ruprekha, Arpita, and Arijit are faring in Fame Gurukul. Qazi and Ruprekha have been declared the Fame Jodi by the Indian public.
So what are they doing these days, Ma?
Don’t know beta, anyway Indian Idol-2 has started.
*But Ma, you voted 10 times for Qazi, don’t you want to see his songs?
The messages from my mobile phone are free, the CD is not. Anyway, I voted for Qazi because he was the cutest of the lot.

Credit must be given to Channel V’s Super Singer for two reasons.
  1. Very little hype was built around the programme and the winners. I wonder whether that was planned or incidental.

  2. The winners are genuinely good singers with a bright future in the Hindi playback industry. (Unlike Ruprekha who has a big heart, Abhijeet whose face is very expressive, Qazi who looked adorable when he cried on stage, and Rahul Vaidya who looks a little like Sonu Nigam.)

India is a nation deprived of true idols, and the entertainment industry is not helping matters. If private channels are not regulated now, we may find the next generation answering to the standard what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up with I-want-to-be-Abhijeet-Sawant. There is no denying that the visual medium is the most far-reaching and powerful means of communication and entertainment. TV channels unfortunately equate entertainment with Shahrukh Khan, songs, and dance. It is time for Doordarshan to step in and produce short films on the life of Dhirubai Ambani, Jamshedji Tata, CV Raman, Narayana Murthy, Dhyan Chand, VS Naipual, Girish Karnad, Rabindranath Tagore, etc.; to appreciate existing idols before creating new ones. It’s sad that such biographies are labeled ‘Documentary’ and thrust to an insignificant corner on Discovery and History Channel. It will be nice to see a popular channel like Star taking the initiative of upgrading the quality of entertainment on TV. Singing contests interspersed with quizzes, biographies, even laughter shows, will serve well to improve the standard of television. But for this, somebody must give Peter Mukherjea and Subhash Chandra a strong wake-up call. They say they air Reality Shows because the public wants to see it, and the public says it watches them because they are shown on TV. Passing the buck will only tear the note.
All that is needed is an Ekta Kapoor-like transformation, but this time to undo the spell she has cast over the Indian audience.

*She did not.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
The Furobiker said...

i m also tryin to make ppl aware abt all this smsm stuff.. but not in a magnanimous way like urs.. will soon post another one on mine inspired by ur efforts in the same direction....

Anonymous said...

Yes, infact you can just be in awe of the power the media has endowed on itself.. The oom the channels have seen so suddenly, the cut throat competition that theses channels face and their so called "dynamic" "go getter" attitude have got a lot to do with this syndrome. Firstly, it is just unbelievable how much of a mockery this entire broadcast medium has been transformed into. You are upset about idolatory , I am unpset about something more basic and more staple. My own favorite- NEWS channels. Man, these people are real "go getters" How else would you explain the growing
"democraticasation" of the channels? If there's an earthquake the channels revel more in the unabashed depiction of sadistic interviews with the victims rather than soom good hard core journalism. So much so that it borders on being crass. The other day I was shocked when a "Sabse Tej" Channel was beaming live all the participants of the so called "Punarjanam story" I do not know how many of you actually saw that. A story of some unknown litle kid having suddenly remembered things about her previous incarnation was flashed all across the nation with the cameras zipping across Studios-Native Village-New Life-Studios-Old Life...No angle on the news was spared without so much as to authenticate the story in the first place. It immediately occured to me "How am I supposed to believe this"? How do I know that it is not one of those media hunters who give a sensational story to the news channel by ENACTING it all infront of them. The channel loves it, its viewers love it and of course the "subjects" themselves.. the fifteen seconds of fame come along with a lot of cash too to appear live in the studios and what not. I am appalled at the mere power of media to create celebrities out of thin air. And this "sabse tej" is not the only one in the fray. There are channels worse than this and trust me, there is stiff competition on this front.. How chatpati can your news get? People, Sting operations are fine with me, they are doing a nice job uncovering corruption in a big way but so much of greed for just about anything that can bring eye balls is not fair to me. Where ther is power there is responsibility. The respect need to be mutual. There isnt any such maxim that this industry follows. The journalism is becoming irresponsible. It seems that there is no one in the studios responsible for editing/news selection. Moreso in the arrena of LIVE television where dynamics are such that you can hardly control the proceedings. You cant blame these people... How much would you give for your fifteen seconds of fame? Dont we love to be on the camera.?? I bet I do....


Cheers,
Vivek Syania

Critic Roshan said...

i can write something intelligent but that mite take all day, i love reality shows, a glutton for these kind of things (go- kaazi!), guess you are too, how do you remember all that info bro?

Anonymous said...

hi,
thanks for being a part of the BLOG LEAGUE, though technically you aren't welcome cause u aint an NITian, we can make exceptions.

good blog you've got here, though i confess i still havent read all the posts. got a small one of my own too. u might wanna check it out: http://3-r.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

No use complaining about it Akshay. Let Nature run its course. Corrections will automatically happen.
You must notice that we live in hostels whos names are Raman and Visvesvarayya, and not KL Saigal or Devika Rani or Himanshu Rai; all of them being contemporaries, and forget about any roads being named Amitabh Bachchan Marg or Shahrukh Path in either the near or far off future.
So, better that we focus on doing what really benefits society , and let the glam boys entertain the men when they're done with their daily nation building tasks. Forget the money , attention to frilliness breeds superfices , as is apparent from the glamour industry.
Alternatively , one can choose NOT to pay much heed to people who are earning money by just doing what they love doing (the entire entertainment industry , including your PhD guides and subjects ;) and all the people who are in the news for excelling in things ; all the junta does is store their records in their minds and feel proud that they remember a great man..including all the famous people that i know about!!. )
Lets focus more on discovering activities that we enjoy ,rather than enjoying vicariously the pleasure others have had doing them.

--Raghav '184' Wahi.

Akshay Rajagopalan said...

@Raghav
You must write shorter comments to make me read them.

@the wanderer
I don't intend to leave an impression on anybody. Blogging, as you must be aware is just an vent without a target.